Saw this at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival
"Theater Camp" is a story about an eccentric staff of a rundown theater camp in upstate New York, as they band together with the beloved founder's bro-y son to keep the camp afloat, when she falls into a coma right before the summer session is set to begin. Director Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman definitely has a interesting direction style and there are some good directing throughout. Unfortunately, the film doesn't really have a strong hold as the narrative was pretty basic and the style of filmmaking ends up feeling a little overdone.
Mocumentary films are pretty interesting as they have a unique and hilarious way on parodying documentaries. Filmmakers like Christopher Guest and shows "The Office" were able to capture that essence pretty well. "Theater Camp" has some fun humor but the overall film didn't have a strong punch. Most of the characters had some charm but their charms fell through halfway and they mostly felt boring and unspecial to care about. The performances from the cast members were pretty good along with the child actors as well. The humor uses modern youth generation to appeal towards the setting and while some of the humor was good, others felt pretty unfunny and annoying to listen too. The dialogue had some moments but others felt really cringy.
The visual presentation is pretty good, the simple camp setting feels nature and colorful, and the last act of the film was pretty entertaining to watch. That being said, it was mostly okay but the film isn't something I would watch a second time.
Rating: C+
"Theater Camp" is a story about an eccentric staff of a rundown theater camp in upstate New York, as they band together with the beloved founder's bro-y son to keep the camp afloat, when she falls into a coma right before the summer session is set to begin. Director Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman definitely has a interesting direction style and there are some good directing throughout. Unfortunately, the film doesn't really have a strong hold as the narrative was pretty basic and the style of filmmaking ends up feeling a little overdone.
Mocumentary films are pretty interesting as they have a unique and hilarious way on parodying documentaries. Filmmakers like Christopher Guest and shows "The Office" were able to capture that essence pretty well. "Theater Camp" has some fun humor but the overall film didn't have a strong punch. Most of the characters had some charm but their charms fell through halfway and they mostly felt boring and unspecial to care about. The performances from the cast members were pretty good along with the child actors as well. The humor uses modern youth generation to appeal towards the setting and while some of the humor was good, others felt pretty unfunny and annoying to listen too. The dialogue had some moments but others felt really cringy.
The visual presentation is pretty good, the simple camp setting feels nature and colorful, and the last act of the film was pretty entertaining to watch. That being said, it was mostly okay but the film isn't something I would watch a second time.
Rating: C+