Review: We're All Going To The World's Fair

Image courtesy of Utopia.

More interesting in concept than execution, director Jane Schoenbrun's debut, the moody but opaque "We're All Going to the World's Fair," has the potential to be a creepy coming of age story - and there are a few images that will likely send chills down your spine - but its overall formlessness and a curiously anticlimactic ending kept me from fully engaging with it.

The film's opening shot sets the tone with an overly long static shot of a bedroom in which a young girl - who seemingly rarely leaves the house, and when she does it's always alone - named Casey (Anna Cobb) is preparing to take part in a ritual known as the World's Fair Challenge, a horror rite-of-passage similar to saying the Candyman's name or "Bloody Mary" multiple times in front of a mirror (but in this case, a computer screen).

During the opening sequence, Casey stops and starts her introduction - and, at one point, begins again from scratch - as she participates in the ritual, which includes a finger poking sequence that might make you cringe. As is the case through most of the rest of the film, the emphasis is not only on Cobb's performance - the film is about three-quarters a one-woman show - but also Casey's. In other words, she's performing for her web-based audience.

Therein lies the question of "We're All Going to the World's Fair": Are the occasional horrors we see depicted onscreen a result of Casey's participation in the ritual - which is said to result in bodily changes for the participants - or are they concocted by Casey to please her audience? That audience is not particularly large, which can be noticed by the dwindling number of views that are displayed in the corner of the screen whenever she posts one of her new "World's Fair" videos.

Casey finally plays to an audience of one - a somewhat creepy, but lonesome, older man who uses an unsettling sketch for his online avatar. This man seeks Casey out because of his similar interest in horror, but also because he seemingly lives alone in the gigantic home through which we occasionally see him walking. The film sets the audience up to believe that Casey is, perhaps, being targeted by an online predator, but the relationship takes some odd turns, and there's ultimately little payoff to it.

As for the horror-related sequences, they are occasionally frightening, especially during scenes in which other participants in the World's Fair challenge have horrific things happen to them - a young man pulls a string of theater tickets out of his arm, while another is pulled into the computer screen in a scene reminiscent of "The Ring." The eeriest moment is one involving a late night session during which Casey records herself sleeping, and something scary is noticed by the lonely man she befriends.

So, while the film may be short on story, explanation and even character motivation, it somewhat makes up for it in mood and tone. Haunting music on the soundtrack often accompanies Casey's lonesome moments in her bedroom - although there's one particularly odd scene in which she sings along to a pop tune, only to interrupt it with a bloodcurdling scream - or her solitary walks in the woods. And the opening gloomy shots of a depleted middle America - empty Toys R Us stores, chain fast food restaurants in otherwise desolate parking lots and highways with scattered cars passing by - help to give a sense of the lonely places that the film's characters inhabit.

But "We're All Going to the World's Fair" is ultimately somewhat of an enigma - and not necessarily in a compelling way. The filmmakers make a wise choice by focusing so much on Casey because Cobb is a game performer, but there are also obvious dangers involved in primarily setting a film inside a drab-looking bedroom, especially if not much happens, and also if there's little in the way of payoff at the film's end. Schoenbrun displays some talents as a director - and her experimental nature scores some points - but ultimately, the film, while occasionally compelling, never quite coheres.