We’re All Going to the World’s Fair Movie Storyline. on a cold night somewhere in the U.S., teenage Casey sits alone in her attic bedroom, scrolling the internet under the glow-in-the-dark stars and black-light posters that blanket the ceiling. She has finally decided to take the World’s Fair Challenge, an online role-playing horror game, and embrace the uncertainty it promises.
After the initiation, she documents the changes that may or may not be happening to her, adding her experiences to the shuffle of online clips available for the world to see. As she begins to lose herself between dream and reality, a mysterious figure reaches out, claiming to see something special in her uploads.
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is a 2021 American coming-of-age horror drama film directed, written, and edited by Jane Schoenbrun. The film stars Anna Cobb in her debut role and Michael J. Rogers. David Lowery served as an executive producer. The film had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 31, 2021. Utopia released the film in U.S. theaters on April 15, 2022 and on HBO Max on April 22, 2022.
About the Story
Casey is a lonely teenage girl who lives with her widower father. One day, she decides to record herself taking the viral “World’s Fair Challenge,” in which she states, “I want to go to the World’s Fair,” four times on camera, smears some of her blood on her laptop screen, and watches a short video of strobing lights before saying she’ll make updates on any “changes” she notices.
Other World’s Fair challengers record and post their own psychological and physical changes. Casey’s next video recounts bouts of sleepwalking she experienced when she was younger, saying she’s begun feeling similarly since taking the challenge. Late one night, she sneaks into her shed, where she finds her father’s shotgun. She then watches an ASMR video of a young woman calming someone after a nightmare before a disturbing 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. JLB claims to worry about the symptoms Casey reported in her last post, and he encourages her to keep making videos so he can monitor her wellbeing. JLB is revealed to be an equally lonely middle-aged man who spends his time watching other peoples’ World’s Fair videos.
JLB watches another video of Casey’s that she recorded while she slept, during which she appears to pull herself out of bed with a menacing smile. JLB informs her through another personal video that the forces behind the World’s Fair are taking over her, and that she should continue posting videos. Casey’s mental state begins to deteriorate, which becomes apparent in the stream of videos she continues posting online, including one where she inexplicably screams in terror while recording herself singing and dancing to a song, and then another later one where she states her intention to either murder her father with his gun or kill herself.
In her next video, she covers her face and arms in glow paint in her blacklit bedroom and tears apart the stuffed animal she’s slept with since she was a newborn. She then appears to come to, becoming distraught over her doll’s destruction. Later in her next conversation with JLB, he continues to worry about her and says he once considered calling the police over her videos’ content. Casey then angrily admits to JLB that her videos were not real, that she was only playing along with the challenge, and that Casey isn’t even her real name. She cuts off contact with him, and he tries in vain to convince her to continue making videos.
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2022)
Directed by: Jane Schoenbrun
Starring: Anna Cobb, Holly Anne Frink, Michael J. Rogers
Screenplay by: Jane Schoenbrun
Production Design by: Grace Sloan
Cinematography by: Daniel Patrick Carbone
Film Editing by: Jane Schoenbrun
Costume Design by: Abby Harri
Art Direction by: Nichole McMinn, Lili Teplan
Makeup Department: Camila Morales
Music by: Alex G
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Utopia
Release Date: January 31, 2021 (Sundance), April 15, 2022 (United States)
Views: 56
