Gasoline Rainbow (2024)

The Ross brother's new film could, at first glance, look like an absolute hellhole. Sure, the sweeping vistas of Oregon look glorious in the trailer, but we also have to spend nearly two hours with a group of Gen Z teenagers as they embark on one last adventure together before they all leave school. We follow five of them, as they leave their home town in a creaking camper van that sounds like its about to fall apart at any moment (and it eventually does, just not perhaps in the way you might initially expect) to voyage across the state without any real destination bar wanting to see the coast. Gasoline Rainbow has been sold as a film of 'vibes', a description that makes one want to roll your eyes or potentially hit something- and if you add in a bunch of teenagers who feel that they're all 'different' and just want to relax and spend time with people with whom they'll be accepted (essentially spend time with people who will tolerate them and allow them to simply do whatever the hell they want with no consequences) it sounds like the absolute pits. Thankfully, it really isn't. There are scenes in the film that are partially improvised, and it gives the whole film a more authentic feel. The friends meet plenty of new people on their journey, and instead of falling into a hole of self justification for bad behavior, it turns into a journey of discovery, and not necessarily that of the self. We enjoy spending time with the five of them and there's something very nostalgic about the film for those of a certain age; it reminds us of a time of innocence when you didn't know the wider world before college or university, and the fear of the unknown was something that didn't really exist. The characters have all had a difficult time in one way or another, and it's clear they've all been there for each other; they also meet people along the way who have been mistreated, or some who feel that they're outsiders. Some of these have indeed had very difficult times and some are more self-titled outsiders, but proceedings have such a non-fictional feel about them that the DIY aesthetic of the film works very well. It's another release this year that's difficult to classify, and as I've said before, this often works in the film's favor. The lack of structure in the film's direction, far from derailing it, matches the misfits themselves- characters who rarely blame others for their problems (a very welcome fact amongst a perhaps generalized view of Gen Z) and just get on with things, never dwelling on various predicaments for too long. I enjoyed the time I spent with these characters, and they didn't outstay their welcome. There was some comparisons to be drawn with Molly Manning Walker's superb How to Have Sex (20223) in terms of a coming of age feature focusing on a last blow out before friends go their separate ways; but also a film whose opening segment had me initially worried at how much time I'd be able to tolerate such characters. A more pertinent comparison perhaps, is Andrea Arnold's American Honey (2016), a sprawling three hour road trip surrounding a girl who runs away from home to travel the country with a group of magazine sellers. Again, all self-titled misfits, I was instantly reminded of Arnold's film from the opening moments of Gasoline Rainbow, and that's a compliment. 7.6/10