Were the World Mine

Review By Camryn Hansen

"Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known.” 

Hold on a sec, wrong brainwashing movie. 

“I pledge allegiance, to the flag…”

Come on, that’s not even a movie.

“The course of true love never did run smooth.” 

That’s it!  The allusive mantra of director Thomas Gustafson’s magical Shakespeare-inspired musical comedy which asks, and unconventionally answers, the age-old question: What would happen if a mischievous fairy got hold of the power to brainwash people into falling in love? 

What would happen, indeed.  Were the World Mine, which took away the SCION (as in the car) Award for First Time Director at the 2008 Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, reinvents the drug-tainted love story from A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a contemporary setting, casting its main character, Timothy (Tanner Cohen), as an openly gay, private boys’ school misfit who is nursing a huge crush on star rugby player, Jonathon (Nathaniel David Becker).  Timothy, a musical daydreamer with a super singing voice, is nevertheless loath to try out for his school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream: The Musical, adapted and directed by its eccentric English teacher, Ms. Tebbit (Wendy Robie, Twin Peaks’ Nadine).  When Ms. Tebbit, who naturally speaks only in Shakespearean verse, chooses Timothy, despite his protests, to star in the production as the fairy Puck, he goes home to rehearse the part only to have a recipe for love potion reveal itself, Harry Potter-style, from within the script.  Timothy promptly whips up a batch, loads it into a purple pansy, and squirts it (with much sexual innuendo) into every crook and cranny of his small, conservative town.  By morning, just about everyone—including Jonathan, who’s serendipitously fallen in love with the gloating Timothy—is sporting an openly gay and all-consuming passion for someone else.  To the few un-squirted who remain, the world is in unnavigable chaos.

As far as musicality goes, the singing and dancing in this film are great across the board.  I was also glad, and a little relieved, at the decision to relegate the singing and dancing to places where they tend to occur in the everyday world, such as goofy fantasies and onstage performances.  That being said, the music itself is not particularly unique or experimental, and suffers from an un-climactic repetition of lyrics and choruses.  In a parallel way, the story, once it gets going (and it does take awhile to get going) is absurdly predictable, with the same joke (Ha! Now he’s gay too! Now she’s gay too!) getting repeated over and over alongside the ubiquitous “The course of true love never did run smooth.”  While I enjoyed watching Were the World Mine, I can’t help but feel that it’s been over-praised by the media, as so many contemporary works with a lot of sassy Shakespeare references tend to be.