Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Theater Camp (2023)

IMDb plot summary: The eccentric staff of a rundown theater camp in upstate New York must band together with the beloved founder's bro-y son to keep the camp afloat.
Directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman. Starring Ben Platt, Molly Gordon, and Noah Galvin.

Theatre Camp is a mockumentary about a summer theater program for children. The beloved founder of the camp has had some unexpected health difficulties and her son is attempting to run the summer program in her absence, despite having no idea what he is doing. We follow a series of different subplots trying to make all the summer shows come together. As someone who works in educational theater and has had quite a few of her own summer theater camp experiences, this absolutely works for me. The jokes nearly all land, and yet the theater kid in me is still drawn into the sentimentality of theater being the thing that changes people. I laughed out loud several times during this, but it also absolutely reminded me why I love this art form so much and how magical it can be working on that with a group of young enthusiastic actors. But also it's just a funny and entertaining movie. I think it would also be entertaining even for folks who are not involved in the theater world at all. The characters are still entertaining, the arcs are still enjoyably silly, and even a lot of the theater in-jokes are structured in such a way that the gist of the joke would get across to even the folks unfamiliar with it. Definitely a delightful watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Theater Camp > The Blues Brothers
Theater Camp > The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Theater Camp < Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
Theater Camp < Spencer
Theater Camp > Shiva Baby
Theater Camp > Au Revoir Les Enfants
Theater Camp > The Incredibles
Theater Camp > Atonement
Theater Camp > The Bumblebee Flies Anyway
Theater Camp > Raya and the Last Dragon
Theater Camp > Onward
Final spot: #720 out of 3838, or 81%.

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