ONE DAY LIKE RAIN is a story that came out of the mind of writer/director Paul Todisco one week in June of 2005, but it is the culmination of ideas from a decade of metaphysical studies, occult readings, and childhood memories of growing up in American suburbia. Although the film plays like a science fiction, fantasy-mystery, the director claims that it is nonetheless a personal story, and likes to describe it as “a teen film about the evolution of consciousness.”
The story opens in the most normal of circumstances. Blond-haired Gina (Samantha Figura) and her friend Jennifer (Marina Resa) walk through their quiet, antiseptic, seemingly deserted suburban neighborhood, past uniform rows of white houses. It’s an environment without soul; the last place a teenager could flourish. But Gina’s got a ‘brilliant master plan’ to ‘wake people up.’ “It’s time for a big change,” she says.
The girls’ destination: the local swimming pool, which is closed…until they casually break in. Jennifer immediately swims but Gina is caught in a reverie as she stares at the pool water. She ruminates; ‘It’s chemistry.’ Something in the rippling water sets her off on a tirade so violent Jennifer has to drag her out of there.
Back at Gina’s house, a bored Jennifer raids the fridge while Gina obsesses, fascinated by her own hand. Inspiration seems to drop from the sky and Gina insists on going shopping for a chemistry set. It’s off to the hobby shop where Jennifer meets a cute boy, Jeremy (Dalton Leeb). Gina buys not one but five chemistry sets; determined to set her ‘plan’ into motion.
But what exactly is her plan? It involves collecting a sample of Jeremy’s blood. It involves setting up a laboratory in her garage while her parents are away. The experiments seem to be more alchemy than chemistry, more metaphysics than physics. Neither Jennifer nor Gina’s car-racing brother Mark (Jesse Eisenberg) have a clue what she is up to. Her experiments extend to effecting the molecular properties of crystals and plants, and the possible use of telepathy. Her boyfriend Stefan (Trevor Zacharias) and she get together and discuss planet earth like they are merely visitors. Whatever Gina is up to, it begins to effect her physically as well as mentally. She collapses into convulsions one day and we are taken into a scene on an alien planet where the creatures there seem to be dying under harsh, arid conditions.
Stefan introduces us to a group of young characters who live secretly in the middle of the woods in makeshift structures and tents. They are a motley assemblage. They seem to have been drawn there, perhaps by a shared vision…or by necessity of some kind…but their ranks are clearly divided. Some seem content to wait things out and see what the future dictates, like Pete (Steven Sprung) and June (Christine Haeberman). Others harbor anger and even violence, like Mick (Dylan Kussman) and his silent friend Frank (Tamlin Hall). Then there’s the mysterious Tatiana (Marisa Petroro), always inappropriately dressed in a stunning red dress, who later tries to convince Gina not to carry through with her plan, and Rip (Maneesh Madahar), who seems to be content as long as he can roll and smoke joints.
Overseeing the group is Ian (William P. Benz), an older man who keeps his distance but sees all. It can be said that he has a deeper, more acute sense of everything that is going on, but he keeps this kind of knowledge to himself. In his silent way he seems to command some authority, but his true intentions only come clear later on. He knows what Gina is up to, and he very much wants her to see the plan through…at whatever the cost. Stefan appears to be some kind of a liaison between these people and the outside world. They also seem to be aware of all of Gina’s activities…
Gina’s experiments finally extend to include human beings, or more specifically, one human being: her friend Jennifer, who drinks a liquid potion / catalytic agent that Gina has concocted. The effect is one of complete and total bliss, and of knowledge beyond what Jennifer thought humanely possible. “Love isn’t malicious. As long as I follow that…” Gina says to Jennifer. Spreading pure love in this manner with the best of intentions seems a good plan, but what Gina and Jennifer don’t count on is the dark side of the pure experience. Is Jennifer prepared for all that this truth entails? There are now no more barriers between she and the suffering of every human being on the planet. Love and suffering, she learns, go hand in hand. Jeremy helplessly watches as Jennifer begins to spiral downwards. “Gina is trying to save the world,” Jennifer tells him. “I mean, she really got it. She got how to do it. It should have been so obvious…” Gina is soon faced with a huge decision: to carry through with her plan, or to quit. Gina begs Ian for an answer, “Am I saving them or destroying them?” The decision rests on her shoulders.
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