It was the last day of screenings at SxSW and I was happy to see the Austin premiere of Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman’s powerhouse THEATRE CAMP at the Paramount Theatre after a loud reaction a few months ago at Sundance.
ABOUT: THEATER CAMP follows the eccentric staff running a scrappy theater camp in upstate New York. After its indomitable and beloved founder falls into a coma, they must band together with her clueless “crypto-bro” son to keep the thespian paradise afloat.
JASON’S REACTION: This ode to theatrical camp comes at you a million miles an hour, gets right up in your face and refuses to let go, reminding me of the best of Christopher Guest parodies as we see the teachers, kids and all supporters all clash at each other in preparation for a big theatrical show at the end of the movie. With a documentary like film-look, hilarious cuts to intertitles with an early John Landis/BLUES BROTHERS font at a breakneck pace, every single performance here is wonderfully unique but all in on the joke and I LOVED how both the adults and kids are respected in equal measure. The movie goes really surreal in the third act with the play performance and I couldn’t be happier with the result; overall everything is so high energy and in your face that it really held my attention for its brisk 92 minute runtime. Kudos as well to the always funny Molly Gordon (here a few years ago at SxSW with GOOD BOYS and BOOKSMART) along with co-director Nick Lieberman for their creative passion, as well as a return to form for Ben Platt after I saw him in 2021’s DEAR EVAN HANSEN. Yeah.
Searchlight Pictures/Disney is releasing THEATRE CAMP on July 14th in theatres, so it was really amazing to get to check it out this early and will be an easy one for theater fans, preferably to see in a cinema with a packed audience. This was a lot of fun to see on the final day and it was the cinematic caffeine kick that I needed.
This film and many others like it showed at South By Southwest this year from March 10-19. For more information on this and other titles, point your browser to www.sxsw.com!