We're All Going to the World's Fair is a 2021 American coming-of-agepsychological horror film[7] written, directed, and edited by Jane Schoenbrun. The film stars Michael J. Rogers and Anna Cobb in her debut role.[8]David Lowery served as an executive producer.[9] The film follows Casey (Cobb), a teenage girl who takes the "World's Fair Challenge" and documents the mental and physical changes that it causes her.
The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 31, 2021.[3] It was released theatrically in the United States by Utopia on April 15, 2022, and began streaming on HBO Max on September 1, 2022.[10][11] It received critical acclaim and has grossed over $100,000 at the box office.
The film is considered to be the first entry into what Schoenbrun refers to as their Screen Trilogy, and was followed by I Saw the TV Glow (2024).
Plot
Casey, a lonely teenage girl living with her single father, records herself taking the viral "World's Fair Challenge". She states "I want to go to the World's Fair" three times, pricks her finger, smears her blood on her laptop computer screen, and watches a strobe light video, before saying she will post updates if she starts to notice any "changes" and posts the video publicly.
Other World's Fair challengers record and post their own psychological and physical changes while engaging with viewers. In a video, Casey recounts bouts of sleepwalking she experienced when she was younger and says she has begun feeling similarly since taking the challenge. Late one night, she sneaks into her shed and finds her father's shotgun. She watches an ASMR video of a young woman calming someone after a nightmare before a video made to her from user "JLB" plays, featuring Casey's distorted face along with the messages "YOU ARE IN TROUBLE" and "I NEED TO TALK TO YOU."
Casey reaches out to JLB, a collaborator with other World's Fair challengers, and speaks with him over Skype, though he keeps his camera off. JLB claims to worry about the symptoms she has reported, and encourages her to keep making videos so he can monitor her well-being. JLB is revealed to be an equally lonely middle-aged man who spends his time watching many people's World's Fair videos.
JLB watches a video Casey recorded of herself sleeping, during which she pulls herself out of bed with a menacing smile. JLB informs her that the forces behind the World's Fair are taking her over, and that she should continue posting. The content of Casey's videos becomes increasingly disturbing: she inexplicably screams in terror while recording herself singing and dancing, she states her intention to use her father's gun to kill either him or herself, and she ominously states she will one day "disappear" and nobody will ever figure out what has happened to her.
In her next video, she covers her face and arms in UV reactive paint and tears apart the stuffed animal she has slept with since she was a newborn. She then appears to snap out of it and tearfully expresses regret when she sees the ruined toy. In her next conversation with JLB, she discusses strange loop theory and her sense that the world has always been false. JLB says they need to "go out of game" so he can ask a serious question, surprising Casey. He says he is worried about her and admits he has considered calling the police to do a wellness check on her. Casey angrily asserts that her videos were not real, she was only playing along with the challenge, and Casey is not even her real name. She cuts off contact with him and accuses him of having a pedophilic attraction to her, while he tries in vain to convince her to continue making videos.
Some time later, JLB recounts having been contacted by Casey a year after their previous exchange. She apologized and said she had spent time in an assisted care facility. They exchanged real names and eventually met up in New York City, where she was participating in a theater program. Casey claimed that on the night she cut contact with JLB, she was transported to the World's Fair, but something pulled her back. It is unclear whether or not this meeting actually occurred.
A number of performers appear in various real and staged YouTube videos, including Theo Anthony, Valeria Santiago, May "NyxFears" Leitz, N8 Detroit, Trevor Lahey and the ASMR content creator Slight Sounds.[12][13]
Production
Jane Schoenbrun was inspired to write the film basing it off personal experiences they'd had on the internet as a teenager in the early 2000s, particularly fanfiction sites and internet forums.[14] Schoenbrun wanted to explore dysphoria in relation to the internet in how something in the online space can exist independent of physical form or constraints.[14] Schoenbrun stated We're All Going to the World's Fair is intended to be the first of a what they call their Screen Trilogy which will consist of I Saw the TV Glow and an as of yet unnamed TV project.[14]
Release
We're All Going to the World's Fair premiered in the Next section at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 31, 2021.[15] It had its Asia premiere at the 2021 Perspectives Film Festival in Singapore on October 21, 2021.[16]
Reception
Box office
In the United States and Canada, the film earned $12,750 from three theaters in its opening weekend.[17]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 90% based on reviews from 118 critics, with an average rating of 7.4/10. The critics consensus reads: "Narratively challenging and visually haunting, We're All Going to the World's Fair adds a uniquely ambitious and unsettling entry to the crowded coming-of-age genre."[18] On Metacritic, the film has a rating of 78 out of 100 based on 24 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[19]
Some reviewers have interpreted the film as having themes of gender dysphoria.[20] Of this, Schoenbrun, who is nonbinary, has said that they were trying "to do something that felt truthful to [their] coming-out process."[20]
