Oh, how they’re trying. You can tell “Theater Camp” is a movie made by comedy writers and not actual filmmakers because its sharpest moments are its throwaway one-liners and energetic performances. God forbid this movie do anything new or exciting aesthetically, thematically, or structurally though. But I try to judge films on what they attempt to do, not what I want them to do. “Theater Camp” wants everyone to like it, and to its credit, it succeeds in being an endearing if not particularly memorable debut feature from Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman.
The positive impact of this strategy is that “Theater Camp” is very funny. Jokes hit quick and hard. This doesn’t give time or space to get many big laughs, but it does create constant amusement throughout the brief runtime. If a joke fails, there’s another one right after to try again. The more specific the jokes, the funnier they become. The writers and performers are all very attuned to theater culture and lovingly lampoon those that live and breathe that culture from the margins. When it tries to break from this to parody the business/economic side of art, it goes broader, and the humor dries up, but the film doesn’t give that subplot too much focus. It quickly goes back to what it knows: theater people.
The film stumbles in its reliance on overused stylistic tropes. The mockumentary format has not felt fresh in decades now — it’s particularly annoying if you’ve been to film school recently and seen almost everyone who wants to make a comedy do so in that style — and the use of the documentary aesthetic isn’t even used to its full potential. It feels thrown in to allow for easy exposition and flat jokes in the form of text appearing on screen to move the thin story along. The “filmmakers” aren’t characters in the movie, but we are constantly reminded of their existence, which destroys any immersion in the world created in “Theater Camp.” It’s an ill-conceived attempt at irony in a film that is entirely sincere otherwise.
“Theater Camp” also struggles to cobble together any emotional core. The narrative is so scattershot, and the characters are such caricatures that trying to ground it all in any way feels forced. The film doesn’t need to do this, and it takes away from its primary strengths — the jokes — in favor of halfhearted audience manipulation because that’s what Sundance crowd-pleasers do nowadays. It doesn’t feel cynical, it’s just unnecessary and poorly executed.
Like most comedies, this can all be overlooked depending on how funny you find “Theater Camp,” and it gets laughs from start to finish. These aren’t just jokes for theater people — although if you have spent any time around them you will appreciate the bits so much more. The film is in the tradition of recent Sundance breakouts “CODA” and “Cha Cha Real Smooth.” There’s no edge here, but its saccharine sincerity wins you over nonetheless. It may not stand out in an independent festival setting, but in the movie desert of August, it’s about as good as it gets.
