"Camp"
A group of talented kids and a washed up Broadway director arrive at Camp Ovation for a summer of music. For the kids, it is the start of their musical careers and all of the wonderful possibilities. For Bert Hanley (Don Dixon) it is the culmination of a rise and fall of a professional lifetime. He finds solace in the bottle but one of his students, Vlad (Daniel Lettrle), finds some of the composer's unpublished music and Bert gets another chance to shine in "Camp."
Freshman director and writer Todd Graff seems to be strongly influenced by what must have been multiple viewings of the movie "Fame" before he laid pen to paper for his screenplay of "Camp." It is an earnest, if derivative effort that has some good songs, OK performances but an uneven style. The young cast lacks experience and come across as amateur - except for when they perform which, in some cases, come off quite well.
It is a typical, if overtly gay, collection of kids from all walks of life - except they all seem to have issues with life and family. Michael (Robin de Jesus), before heading off to camp, tries to attend his junior prom in drag. Of course, he gets the crap beat out of him and seeks solace with his brethren at camp. Ellen (Joanna Chilcoat) has self-esteem issues and another of the girls arrives at camp with her jaws wired shut by her parents in lieu of sending her to fat camp. Vlad, the only straight guy in camp, as far as I could tell, is a hit with the ladies - especially Ellen and super bitch Jill (Alana Allen), a sultry wench who usually gets what she want. Shy Fritzi (Anna Kendrick) idolizes Jill and puts up with her abuse - until one day...
The best things about "Camp" are some of the individual performances. Kendrick's Fritzi gets the most development as she transitions from Jill's meek and mild servant to her hardened and capable rival. Fritzi's revenge is sweet. Too bad there wasn't more of her in the film. Daniel Lettrle, as Vlad, is bland in character and his sole winning point in the film, for the ladies, is that he is heterosexual. Don Dixon does a competent job as the trouble composer who final accepts the acclaim from the mouths of the babes in his care.
The musical numbers, and score by Stephen Trask ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch"), have a lot of energy and are well choreographed and, for me, the real draw to "Camp." The whole teen angst thing left me cold but I can see where it will appeal to the young, primarily gay, audience it will attract to the art houses. I give it a C+.
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