“THEATER CAMP” My rating: C+ (Hulu)
92 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
The people who made “Theater Camp” are, quite obviously, former child actors.
Which is why anyone who ever devoted a few formative months of their youth to singing, dancing and dreaming of stardom will find this film triggers a tsunami of fond memories.
For some that will be enough.
I wanted more.
Maybe it’s because “Theater Camp” — written by Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman and directed by Gordon and Lieberman —is a bit too much in love with its own mythology to bring out the knives.
I was hoping for “Waiting for Guffman”-level laughs.“ What I got was a bunch of narrative backstage cliches without the really biting satire that would lift the film from the modestly amusing to the truly memorable.
Here’s the setup: Joan Rudinsky, the long-time founder/director of Camp AdirondACTS (played in a prologue by Amy Seders) is hospitalized and in a coma. In her absence a skeleton staff overseen by her theatrically clueless son Troy (Jimmy Tatro) are struggling to keep their young campers occupied, fed and engaged in producing the summer’s penultimate show, a musical tribute to Joan.
The usual “types” are on display, with the central characters being Angelo and Sylvia (Ben Platt, Gordon) who fell in love when they were students at AdirondACTS and, since Angelo’s coming out, have been best buds.
Problem is, Sylvia seems to have marketable talents (she’s been asked to audition for a cruise show) while Angelo seems destined never to move beyond the camp. This makes for some tension.
Meanwhile the inept Troy is considering a buyout from the rival (and much more posh) summer camp across the lake. Also he’s getting romantically encouraging vibes from the other camp’s CFO (Patti Harrison).
There are some modest laughs here, but the approach is gentle and sweet, possibly the result of the filmmaker’s improvisational approach. The hoped-for avalanche of social comedy never materializes.
In fact, “Theater Camp” only really comes together in the last reel when the kids put on their big tribute to Joan and in classic movie fantasy fashion transcend amateurism to dleliver an inspired night of musical theater.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 