World Full of Nothing

Skilled and Timely

     

Not since Armenian-Canadian auteur Atom Egoyans Adoration has an indie flicker picture so gravely tackled the subject of the web s pernicious influence on the naive minds of impressionable young internauts.A rash of copycat teen suicides that s been tying up FBI Agent Krissie Templeman (Jo Bozarth) in stitches as Templeman trawls the net s vastness to pinpoint the very next one. She goes native on us the deeper she plunges into the dark blue abyss of teens who wish nothing more than to prematurely put an end their unlived lives. Then we got poor Rachael (Bella Nelson), who s almost daring us to permit her to pull the gun s trigger. She emits video bursts of her capricious insolence onto ultra-popular video sharing sites, hoping that some attention-starved zero jacks her view numbers into the stratosphere. Encircling the film like a gossamer sheen is the omnipresent discussion about the malicious effect the net is having on our 21st-century youth. Mock boisterous TV talk shows are the fertile arena for spirited debate about the demerits of the World Wide Web with rampant allusions casted by these invited panels of experts (among others, played this time, by a near-veteran turn by Pomeroy s mom well done) that the global interwebs be dismantled. These various blowhards attempt to convince the viewers that stuffing the inter-genie back in the Coke bottle will save humanity while other pontificators, like the fire-and-brimstone breathing preacher (Greg Travis), entreat us to prostrate ourselves to the Son of God as the lone salve for the human race on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Refereeing this roiling contentious mass of utter disharmony is the famous host Rupert Michaels (James Cameron-vet Richard Gunn), who aghast mediates the discussion with a modicum of respect, though it s painfully clear he totally disagrees with practically everything being mentioned during this broadcast. Is there an exit from this morass? Can there even be said to be a win? World Full of Nothing posits that the mother lode of the damage has already been done, and all that s left for us to do is suppress to the best of our futile abilities any further havoc which a truly open, unfettered internet is having on our celeb-crazed, pop-drunk, overly-Westernized terra firma. Jesse Pomeroy skillfully posits the all-consuming question throughout WFON, does what we re doing on a daily basis really amount to a world of nothing?