Theater Camp chooses to frame itself as a fake documentary. I stress this as a choice because as you watch you really don’t see any actual benefit to that choice. It seems like it would have been just as easy to edit this story as a handheld narrative film, but no Theater Camp insists on the conceit of malformed reality. It’s a vain attempt to wring every ounce of humor out of the surreality of what you’re actually watching. The mockumentary is a beloved niche genre that has produced some of America’s greatest comedies, but one of the keys to making one successfully is commitment – the film must have the cinematic fundamentals of a documentary. Theater Camp more often then not simply forgets its own gambit, leaving the audience to constantly question: what is this all for?

AdirondACTS is a children’s acting camp in upstate New York run expertly by Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris). When Joan has a stroke while fundraising for this year’s season, the documentary crew pivots and decides to focus on her son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro) who tries to keep the camp afloat while Joan is in a coma. Troy is a GoPro-toting influencer with dreams of business success, but he doesn’t really understand the obsessive nature of AdirondACTS’s attendees. He gets a rundown from the camp’s tech expert Glenn (Noah Galvin) who tries his best to give him a quick but thorough rundown of everything they do. What Glen doesn’t mention is Amos (Ben Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon). Two aspiring actors who have bypassed professional work to continue attending AdirondACTS into adulthood, Amos and Rebecca-Diane decide to take the lead at this year’s camp and make the season a tribute to Joan.

If the finished product lacks a singular vision, a simple look at the credits will explain that. Gordon is also the listed director on the film alongside Nick Lieberman, and the script was written by both of them as well as Platt and Galvin. The film is a feature-length adaptation of a short film that the four of them made, and if nothing else, you can feel real affection for the characters and their plight, even if it’s not as cohesive as you’d hope. The movie manages to avoid punching down at eccentric theater kids, while still putting their idiosyncrasies on full display, and a lot of the laughs feel earned. The only time the film fully succeeds is its finale, which pulls off a perfect synthesis of heartfelt and hilarious that you assume it had been searching for in the first eighty minutes. The film’s ending is almost too good, shining a light on all the shortcomings that preceded it.

Theater Camp has an impressive cast, including Gordon’s co-star from The Bear, Ayo Adebiri, as a new teacher who’s lied her way onto a job. Nathan Lee Graham plays the camp’s diva dance instructor. Patti Harrison is a corporate camp owner looking to buy out AdirondACTS. Even the great Caroline Aaron shows up as Joan’s close friend and the sole veteran presence on the campus. Platt and Gordon, the movie’s main stars, carry the narrative burden, they also shoulder the movie’s weakest story. Platt – still rehabbing the disaster that was Dear Evan Hanson – fits hand-in-glove in the role of Amos, but he’s definitely a short film character spread thin. With Gordon, she’s attempting to bring depth to a character that doesn’t have any, a victim of her own direction. It’s a metaphor for the film as a whole really: it’s never really conceived much beyond its basic premise.

 

Directed by Molly Gordon & Nick Lieberman