Funny how every single slow-paced indie movie on IMDB has a top-rated negative review that's prefaced with, "Look, I normally LOVE slow-paced indie movies, but this one..." It's really starting to seem like something reviewers say just so they can pretend they have the proper "credentials" to hate on a low-budget, slowly-paced indie film. Little Miss Sunshine is not an indie movie, you guys.
But whatever. People who leave low ratings on critical darlings let me know that it's actually a movie I'm going to enjoy. For some reason that's my sweet spot--critics adore it, audience members hate it. "Nobody gets killed with a machete in this, how can it be a horror movie?" Streaming services have given people such entitlement--if you're not entertained in the first five seconds, you can switch to something else instead of settling in and trying to give it a chance. I grew up in the days of movie rental stores, where you got one or two movies for the weekend and that was it, so you might as well try to enjoy them and meet them on their own terms. The irony, of course, is that a film like We're All Going to the World's Fair probably wouldn't have gotten any traction whatsoever in a pre-streaming world.
As a 36-year-old man, I don't have any authority to say what is accurate representation for modern-day teenage girls, but Casey, as portrayed by Anna Cobb, feels so much more authentic to me than all the Gen-Z hipsters spouting woke Internet lingo in Netflix's Wednesday or even another recent horror film, Bodies Bodies Bodies (which I actually enjoyed, outside of the empty satire of social media parlance). She reminded me of the friends I had in high school--moody, troubled, silly, angsty, dramatic, lonely, impulsive. A girl who is very much still a child trying to navigate adult-sized feelings in her still-developing body.
Casey takes part in an online viral challenge that is something like an interactive creepypasta, instigated by repeating three times into the webcam, "I want to go to the World's Fair". The specifics of this role-playing game are never entirely elucidated, but the purpose seems to be to instigate changes in one's body and mental state, culminating in a "visit" (real, imagined, invented?) to a timeless, placeless fairground. Other YouTubers post videos of their "symptoms" over time--mental breaks, numbness, scabs and scars. Casey documents herself sleeping and exhibits strange nocturnal behaviors. The question at the heart of the film is whether something truly bizarre and supernatural is actually going on with Casey, if she is experiencing mental illness, or if she simply wants to take part in something larger than herself, to garner a sense of community, to create a narrative around herself that is more dramatic and fulfilling than her isolated days spent dancing in her attic bedroom or wandering aimlessly around her small town.
Complicating matters is a man named JLB who contacts Casey online, warning her she might be in actual danger. They talk over Skype, but his face is hidden, the screen displaying only an avatar. His voice indicates that he is a much older man. It's unclear exactly what his intentions are--is he simply participating in the MMORPG? Does he see something of his depressed teenage self in Casey that he wants to protect? Or is he a creep trying to groom a child under the innocent guise of a horror game? This is left ambiguous until the very end, with writer/director Jane Schoenbrun refusing to dictate how the viewer must feel about this unconventional, apparently unsupervised relationship. Casey's behavior toward JLB alternates between cautious intrigue, vulnerability, and passive-aggressiveness. Sadly, it reminds me very much of girls I knew in high school who got into relationships with older men: flitting from hot to cold, affection to rage, desperately seeking love and approval but lashing out at random intervals. Playing the drama of adult relationships without having the maturity to understand their depth. It's like Casey suspects, on some unconscious level, that she's being exploited, that JLB's interactions are perhaps less than appropriate, but he's also the only person in her life giving her the attention she craves, so she can't bring herself to walk away.
The cinematography, mostly filtered through cell phone lenses and webcams, is distinctly uncinematic. I wouldn't say the film is documentarian--even documentaries aim for striking imagery. But We're All Going to the World's Fair is more concerned with capturing a time and place, a feeling. When Casey ventures outside, she wanders alongside highways, trudging over sidewalks caked in dirty snow, traversing through thin forests to sit in unremarkable graveyards across the street from an ugly strip mall. The environment is all cement and chain link fences, about as far as one can get from the Gothic heights of vampire castles and fairy tale villages one traditionally associates with horror. I'm not sure where it was filmed, but it reminded me of where I grew up--the stark, flat lighting of the winter sun, yellowing grass underfoot, the boxy downtown area strung up with Christmas lights and populated with denizens who look like they just got off their shift at a car dealership rather than walking to set directly from the catwalk, as extras tend to look in Hollywood movies.
The late comedian Mitch Hedburg had an infidelity joke that went like this: "I don't have a girlfriend, but I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that." I'll paraphrase that to describe the genre of We're All Going to the World's Fair as best I can: "It is a horror movie, but I know a lot of horror fans would get mad at me for saying that."
But whatever. People who leave low ratings on critical darlings let me know that it's actually a movie I'm going to enjoy. For some reason that's my sweet spot--critics adore it, audience members hate it. "Nobody gets killed with a machete in this, how can it be a horror movie?" Streaming services have given people such entitlement--if you're not entertained in the first five seconds, you can switch to something else instead of settling in and trying to give it a chance. I grew up in the days of movie rental stores, where you got one or two movies for the weekend and that was it, so you might as well try to enjoy them and meet them on their own terms. The irony, of course, is that a film like We're All Going to the World's Fair probably wouldn't have gotten any traction whatsoever in a pre-streaming world.
As a 36-year-old man, I don't have any authority to say what is accurate representation for modern-day teenage girls, but Casey, as portrayed by Anna Cobb, feels so much more authentic to me than all the Gen-Z hipsters spouting woke Internet lingo in Netflix's Wednesday or even another recent horror film, Bodies Bodies Bodies (which I actually enjoyed, outside of the empty satire of social media parlance). She reminded me of the friends I had in high school--moody, troubled, silly, angsty, dramatic, lonely, impulsive. A girl who is very much still a child trying to navigate adult-sized feelings in her still-developing body.
Casey takes part in an online viral challenge that is something like an interactive creepypasta, instigated by repeating three times into the webcam, "I want to go to the World's Fair". The specifics of this role-playing game are never entirely elucidated, but the purpose seems to be to instigate changes in one's body and mental state, culminating in a "visit" (real, imagined, invented?) to a timeless, placeless fairground. Other YouTubers post videos of their "symptoms" over time--mental breaks, numbness, scabs and scars. Casey documents herself sleeping and exhibits strange nocturnal behaviors. The question at the heart of the film is whether something truly bizarre and supernatural is actually going on with Casey, if she is experiencing mental illness, or if she simply wants to take part in something larger than herself, to garner a sense of community, to create a narrative around herself that is more dramatic and fulfilling than her isolated days spent dancing in her attic bedroom or wandering aimlessly around her small town.
Complicating matters is a man named JLB who contacts Casey online, warning her she might be in actual danger. They talk over Skype, but his face is hidden, the screen displaying only an avatar. His voice indicates that he is a much older man. It's unclear exactly what his intentions are--is he simply participating in the MMORPG? Does he see something of his depressed teenage self in Casey that he wants to protect? Or is he a creep trying to groom a child under the innocent guise of a horror game? This is left ambiguous until the very end, with writer/director Jane Schoenbrun refusing to dictate how the viewer must feel about this unconventional, apparently unsupervised relationship. Casey's behavior toward JLB alternates between cautious intrigue, vulnerability, and passive-aggressiveness. Sadly, it reminds me very much of girls I knew in high school who got into relationships with older men: flitting from hot to cold, affection to rage, desperately seeking love and approval but lashing out at random intervals. Playing the drama of adult relationships without having the maturity to understand their depth. It's like Casey suspects, on some unconscious level, that she's being exploited, that JLB's interactions are perhaps less than appropriate, but he's also the only person in her life giving her the attention she craves, so she can't bring herself to walk away.
The cinematography, mostly filtered through cell phone lenses and webcams, is distinctly uncinematic. I wouldn't say the film is documentarian--even documentaries aim for striking imagery. But We're All Going to the World's Fair is more concerned with capturing a time and place, a feeling. When Casey ventures outside, she wanders alongside highways, trudging over sidewalks caked in dirty snow, traversing through thin forests to sit in unremarkable graveyards across the street from an ugly strip mall. The environment is all cement and chain link fences, about as far as one can get from the Gothic heights of vampire castles and fairy tale villages one traditionally associates with horror. I'm not sure where it was filmed, but it reminded me of where I grew up--the stark, flat lighting of the winter sun, yellowing grass underfoot, the boxy downtown area strung up with Christmas lights and populated with denizens who look like they just got off their shift at a car dealership rather than walking to set directly from the catwalk, as extras tend to look in Hollywood movies.
The late comedian Mitch Hedburg had an infidelity joke that went like this: "I don't have a girlfriend, but I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that." I'll paraphrase that to describe the genre of We're All Going to the World's Fair as best I can: "It is a horror movie, but I know a lot of horror fans would get mad at me for saying that."
