Written and directed by Ayoka Chenzira
Some movies are a party that you’re invited to. Full of life, joy, energy and community, they draw you in and you don’t really want to leave. Ayoka Chenzira’s Alma’s Rainbow, a story of a teenage girl’s coming-of-age experience, is such a movie. Fun, touching, and buoyant with a love for its characters.
Victoria Gabrielle Platt stars as Rainbow. She loves dancing and performing. She cuts out of school so she can spend all her time doing it. She’s uncomfortable with how her body feels, or rather, with how the world makes her feel about her body. She’s starting to look like a woman, but not ready to quite act like one yet.
Kim Weston-Moran stars as Alma, Rainbow’s mother. She wants the best for her daughter, but the two are at odds over what that looks like. Alma works hard running a beauty salon out of her Brooklyn brownstone, and through will and commitment, she has built a comfortable and safe existence for Rainbow to grow up in. Like children often do, Rainbow wants out. She wants to see the world, and for her art to pay her way.
Enter Mizan Kirby as Rainbow’s aunt, Ruby Gold. A traveling singer, she’s been a rolling stone for years and now she’s back in town for a spell. Rainbow’s eyes light up in admiration of her aunt, her glittery career, and the self-possessed femininity she exudes, but Alma still remembers how she had to hold down the home front when Ruby ran off to chase her dreams. Now Alma and Ruby sit on Rainbow’s shoulders, pulling at her ears. Who’s she going to listen to?
Over a tidy 85 minutes, Chenzira tells a charming story about self-discovery, self-acceptance, and family reconciliation. Best of all, it’s sweet, not saccharine.
She accomplishes that through a lived-in depiction of life’s small breathing holes, namely the communities in which you live. Scenes at Alma’s beauty parlor, where the aunties discuss this and that, a party where everyone lets loose in their finest, most colorful dresses, a daughter grilling her mother’s suitor anxiously waiting in the entrance to take her on a date – these all feel real, but heightened for the full effect.
It’s all familiar and warm-to-the-touch, but made to burst right off the screen and the energy wins you over. The effect is that of an intimate performance of eye-level entertainment. It’s life as you know it, genuine that is, just a little more concentrated.
Alma’s Rainbow will also make you laugh. Chenzira has great comedic timing in her direction, and it’s often the men of Alma’s Rainbow who put on the song and dance with each their own distinct style of peacocking. Lee Dobson is hard to resist as handyman Blue, who’s got a sweet eye for Alma. The gold tooth that has pride of place in the middle of Blue’s mouth is its own running gag, and his scarecrow physique only adds to the effect. He’s not an overpowering romantic lead, but he’s believable as the love of anyone’s life.
Together, Gabrielle Platt, Weston-Moran, and Kirby shine as the trinity at the heart of Alma’s Rainbow. The overbearing and proper sister, the firecracker sibling, and a girl who loves her mother, but knows she doesn’t want to be her. Chenzira’s script is lucid, to-the-point, and compassionate without letting anyone off the hook. People are who they are, complete and colorful.
Ruby’s fun and lifts up those around her. She also has a touch of the artist’s delusion. Alma’s proper to a fault, and overly controlling. Rainbow is headstrong like her mother, but doesn’t yearn for stability – her mother’s given her that. Their twirling dance of how they frustrate each other, let each other down, lift each other up – it’s all delivered with that same tough affection only family is capable of.
An independent feature, Alma’s Rainbow is technically rough assembly at times, but its money is in the right place, with writing, direction, performances, and chemistry all coming together in a winning way. A colorful film in both subject matter and execution, Alma’s Rainbow is a shimmering bit of filmmaking at the foot of the hearth.
Mikkel Frederiksen 