Science Fair documents the profound and entertaining journey of nine students competing against 1,700 of the world’s brightest young minds
This is not your typical science fair. Directors Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster’s film about the classic school tradition have young high school students with foam poster board talking about their projects. But instead of papier-mâché volcano’s and powering a light bulb from a potato, these kids are solving real-world problems like curing Zika and preventing cancer—not an exaggeration.
“Every year my nerve level goes up a little bit. I think when I was younger I didn’t realize the stakes were as high as they are,” one student says during a regional science fair to qualify for the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF)—the world’s most prestigious science fair.
Mind you, the student that said this is no older than 16-years-old. This is how seriously these students—and the nine subjects of the film—take science fairs. And the movie often covers it to comical effect. Science Fair feels like a teen dramedy in the highest praise possible. It’s an incredibly charismatic documentary.
However, Science Fair isn’t really about science fairs. It’s about the participants, their circumstances, where they grew up, and how that shapes their motivations. Eventually, after meeting each subject and learning about their journey to get to ISEF, it becomes apparent that this film is more than its surface charms.
The film in Kentucky at a school where students focusing on STEM are treated like football stars and the science fair is their championship game. As we follow the students—mainy the team of Ryan Folz, Harsha Paladugu, and Abraham Riedel-Mishaan, who are creating a stethoscope that can detect heart arrhythmia—there are shots of the affluent suburban neighborhoods that they live in. Large houses and kids with their own cars.
Then, we cut to a very different place—Brookings, South Dakota. Here, sports are the main focus despite the football team going 0-9 last season. Still, 16-year-old junior Kashfia Rahman persists in her effort to pursue STEM.
However, Kashfia’s journey also touches on another theme that Science Fair tackles. She talks about living as a Muslim girl who wears a hijab in a red state small town in the United States.
She talks about how she feels out of place in a Walmart having to “not look scary” to passersby—it’s heartbreaking. At one point the filmmaker’s go around to other students asking them if they know Kashfia and most of them say no while one says, “we have one of those people here?” Whether he’s referring to her being a successful science champion or her religion isn’t specified.
While everything about the actual journey to ISEF is charming and often funny, the main through-line across all the subjects of Science Fair is that they all are from underrepresented groups in STEM, many them without the resources to help them pursue their passions.
From Shenandoah Junction, West Virginia to Lorch, Germany to Iracema, Brazil, each student has a story and a struggle. At one point, Myllena Braz De Silva‘s—a finalist from Brazil—mother says emotionally, “she really has to get out of here to grow.”
The balance that Science Fair strikes between its subjects is what makes it so successful. It drives a lot of its messages without directly addressing them. The film uses the juxtaposition between each student to make its commentary, which allows it to be entertaining and crowd-pleasing but profound.
Science Fair has so much to say without making it feel like its preaching. Jericho, New York science teacher Dr. Serena McCalla, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, talks about how so many American advances in STEM have come from people who are not natural born citizens.
Still, those people aren’t getting the attention they deserve, which is what Science Fair sets out to change through its young subjects. It’s entertaining, funny, and uplifting to watch each young scientist, engineer, and mathematician speak with so much confidence about their passions. Science Fair is so of our time without having to say it. It’s one of the best documentaries of the year.
Science Fair is available to buy or rent on Amazon
Karl’s rating:
Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.
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