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My biggest takeaway from Christina Kallas’ The Rainbow Experiment is that teachers really don’t get paid enough in this country. Think about new technologies, entitled parents, emotionally confused kids with no outlet, and dwindling budgets forcing them to spend out-of-pocket for resources all while a guillotine hangs above their necks if grade thresholds aren’t met. Suddenly those idealistic educators hoping to change the world find themselves caught in a futile game wherein job security becomes paramount at the children’s expense. Everyone’s back is pressed against the wall as a ticking time bomb threatens to explode … and I’m not even talking about the possibility of someone walking in with a loaded arsenal and grudge to bear. Has today’s stress increased or are we simply too close to it?

Look at the kids too because they have it just as bad. Bullying is no longer isolated...

Google the words “rainbow experiment chemistry” and the internet will provide a wealth of seemingly kid-friendly directives for how to use science to “make a rainbow,” an idea that seems fun enough until another link pops up: a safety alert from the American Chemical Society about an experiment gone very, very wrong.

It’s that sort of tension — between the possibility of academic discovery and out-and-out terror — that frames up Christina Kallas’ Slamdance drama, “The Rainbow Experiment,” which follows what happens after one of those eponymous experiments leads to unexpected consequences, one that indict and unravel whole scores of people and institutions.

Read More:Slamdance 2018 Announces Special Screenings, Including New Films From Lisa France and Dana Nachman

Per the film’s official synopsis, “Things spiral out of control in a high school in Manhattan when a terrible accident involving a science experiment injures a kid for life. A who-dun-it with a...