HFC at SXSW ‘24: The Gasoline Rainbow Review

Films blurring the line between reality and fiction always make for a compelling, if slightly confounding, experience. Take Chloé Zhao's Nomadland (2020) for example: it's a film that has a script, crew, and cast that's a mix of renowned actors like Frances McDormand and regular folks off the street playing themselves. Nomadland strives for realism, but it's hard to shake the feeling that the film is cosplaying reality with its made-up drama and performers—begging the question, what's the point of these films that can't decide if they want to be truth or fiction?

This thought crosses the mind during Gasoline Rainbow, which is showing as a “Festival Favorite” this year at SXSW. The latest film from brothers Bill Ross lV and Turner Ross, Gasoline Rainbow joins Nomadland in that group of films keeping one foot in reality and one in manufactured filmmaking. 

To the Ross brothers’ credit, they try as hard as they can to leave any sense of Hollywood in the rearview. The cast is composed entirely of first-time actors and people plucked from the streets, with the central quintet of characters played by actual teenagers (who retain their actual names in the film, as well as some of their real-life tragic backgrounds). Everything is shot on location, with the exception of a scene on a “train” that the Ross brothers noted in the Q&A was the rare moment when filmmaking magic had to come into play for logistical and safety reasons. For the majority of the runtime one couldn’t be blamed for thinking this is a full-blown documentary. But as it turns out, Gasoline Rainbow has a predetermined story and script.

That story, written by the Ross brothers, is simple: a group of five teenagers living in a forgotten Oregon small town decide to embark on a 500-mile road trip to the Pacific Coast. It’s a trip that promises physical and emotional freedom for these kids who feel trapped by the cards life has dealt them. So off the kids go, hopping into a beat-up van and traversing the plains, waterfronts, and cities that pop up along their route. 

The Ross brothers' story hits a lot of the usual beats that come with teenagers going on a road trip. There’s musings from the characters on their lots in life, quick romantic flings, feelings of doubt and excitement, and the occasional nugget of road wisdom garnered from a scraggly but kind stranger. Even where their story settles for the usual, the Ross brothers take care to let the world and the characters in it color the rest of the film with vibrant humanity.

For better or worse, each of the main cast comes across as genuine teenagers looking to get one last joy in before the realities of adulthood come for them. Makai Garza, Micah Bunch, Tony Arburto, Nichole Dukes, and Nathalie Garcia seem to have a blast hanging out with each other. The cinematography, which mixes handheld digital cameras for up-close moments and film cameras for the more eye-popping shots of the Oregonian landscape,  places audiences firmly in the middle of the teens’ jokes and conversations. 

The main challenge Gasoline Rainbow offers to audiences is spending an hour and a half with five teenagers packed in a car. Sometimes it’s annoying, sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s meandering, but the film and its performers capture all those little quirks of being a kid who has no idea what they're doing.

Nevertheless, the thematic conundrum that pops in and out Nomadland also makes its presence felt here. With the performers more or less playing themselves, one wonders why the Ross brothers didn’t just decide to make a full-blown documentary about them, rather than creating fictional scenarios. With scenes like one where the kids discover their van has been stripped of its tires, there’s not much tension because the audience knows this is all crafted by a pre-written script. For every moment of sharp visualization that paints a vivid picture of kids sloppily making their way through the world, there’s the re-realization waiting in the corner that this is all constructed by writers. So we circle back to that original question: “What’s the point?”

Why make a movie that strives to be as real as possible but also intentionally have it centered around a predetermined path? Why bring on a bunch of kids to play themselves but have them take part in situations that are based on a script (that still borrows heavily from the kids’ real life experiences, as Bunch noted in the Q&A)? These questions manifest in Gasoline Rainbow, but they don’t turn it into a bad experience. 

Luckily, the excellent filmmaking at work in Gasoline Rainbow prevents it from getting bogged down with thematic questions of narrative and reality filmmaking. While the reasoning and intentions of their film are elusive, the Ross brothers make their talents of vividly showcasing the tucked-away people and places they’re fascinated with crystal clear.