Review: In ‘Gasoline Rainbow,’ carefree kids hit the road during a fleeting moment when they can

The New Orleans-based filmmaking brothers Bill and Turner Ross have made a name for themselves over the past 15 years with their lyrical, poetic documentaries. They play a group of friends from a small town called Wiley, who hit the road with the only things you need for an adventure: a dream, a posse, a van and the abiding belief that “anywhere’s better than here.” The dream is to see the Oregon coast, 513 miles from their landlocked town. If pioneering English documentarian John Grierson’s definition of nonfiction filmmaking was the “creative treatment of actuality,” “Gasoline Rainbow” could ostensibly fit under that umbrella. In “Gasoline Rainbow,” the kids come by this sense of mutual protection naturally, but the value is reinforced along the way by the heavily-pierced punk hitchhikers who teach them how to hop a train to Portland in exchange for their leftover food, and the middle-aged rockers who provide a party, a couch to crash, breakfast and a boat ride. “Gasoline Rainbow” is also stunningly gorgeous, with carefully composed shots capturing the vast Oregon landscape, raspberry sunsets, golden fields, the beach at night and in the misty morning.