Playing Camp

Are you a fan of Christopher Guest mockumentaries like A Mighty Wind, Best in Show, and others? Well, then you're no doubt sad that Guest hasn't made one in several years. But there is a new movie this year that feels very similar: Theater Camp.

Theater Camp is set exactly where the title says. When the head of a summer camp for theater kids is hospitalized, her resident staff tries to carry on without her as her decidedly non-theater-immersed son tries to take over the finances and management of the camp. "Documentary cameras" capture all the strangeness of characters taking their work way too seriously: a faculty who treat the productions like they're Broadway bound, and kids as committed to their performances as though they're up for a Tony. Hilarity ensues -- and it's particularly hilarious if you've ever been involved in a theater production yourself at any point in your life.

I said this movie had the feeling of a Christopher Guest film, though it likely wasn't created in quite the same way. Where the Guest films are known to be improvised in large part, Theater Camp looks to be mostly scripted -- the work of its two debut directors, Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman, and two more of the stars, Noah Galvin and Ben Platt. With all of them having a theater background (full of exposure to the tropes they want to lampoon), and most of the rest of the cast being actual kids, it seems unlikely they'd often just let the camera roll to "see what happens."

In a way, it is those kids -- mostly "unknown" -- that are the best part of the movie, even if Platt is an actual Tony winner, Galvin has starred in a sitcom, and Gordon has appeared in things from Booksmart to The Bear. The wildly over-the-top performances of these young actors is made even funnier by how often age-inappropriate the material they're working with is. It's arguably a form of the same joke told repeatedly, but at a tight 90 minutes, the movie doesn't come close to the end of how funny it can be.

Though, admittedly, Theater Camp is a little bit slow to get started. A powerhouse cameo from Amy Sedaris as the real camp manager almost gets things off on the wrong foot; she gets to play broad (as she does best) and doesn't have to create a character that's built to last for an entire narrative. Once she's "taken off the board," the movie is a bit slow to find its rhythm, balancing the comedy with the story. But it does get there. And the finale, a performance that's been built up for the entire movie, is absolutely as hilarious as all the build-up leads you to hope for.

I give Theater Camp a B. Hopefully, you don't have to have any personal history with theater to enjoy it. But if you do, this may well be a "must see."