We're All Going to the World's Fair

 A film about creepy internet rabbit holes that's almost indistinguishable from... well, creepy internet rabbit holes, but without a good rabbit hole to delve into; Just a really good performance from Anna Cobb as Casey, a lonely, haunted-looking teenager who decides to take "The World's Fair Challenge", a viral challenge that's also a kind of ill-defined online role-playing game somehow?

 The idea is that you take the challenge, which involves a sort of ritual pledge, and then chronicle the ways in which it changes you - we get to see a few other challengers, and their stuff is... well, the sort of really shitty stuff people swipe through on tiktok with glazed eyes. The way it affects Casey's is a little more interesting, though.

 The movie mostly consists of Casey's uploaded videos, and it's up to us to piece together what's going on with her - a task made difficult because she's a fairly inscrutable kid, and also because the videos are 45% inane 'creepy' youtuber shit, 45% nothing at all going on.

 I fucking loathed the experience of watching a lot of this film, and despite the narrative crumbs left here and there in the middle of all that tedium, I had a really hard time making it through.

 Overall I liked the two main story threads: Casey's psychological descent into... whatever is going on, and the efforts of a random online guy (Michael J. Rogers) who contacts her and tries to help her through the changes. I liked the uncertainty about what the hell is happening, and that the movie does convey a certain psychological depth for Casey (the guy... not so much). I liked where the film finally ends up.

 But you could probably tell the same story in ten minutes - maybe stretch it out to twenty. At an excruciating eighty-six minutes... nope. And I understand why all the filler is there, and why other people might not see it as filler; Personally, I have very low tolerance for that shit, and that I made it all the way through is a testament to writer/director's Jane Schoenbrun's talent and Cobb's performance as Casey (and the fact that I cut the movie a lot of slack for being a zero-budget experiment). I'm glad I did, but let's never do that again.

 It's a nigh insubstantial mood piece, the sort of thing that might be fascinating if you can get onboard. Between this and Skinamarink, I'm starting to suspect maybe I'm just too old.