CAMP [ 1/2]
“Fame” goes to summer camp. Running time: 114 minutes. Rated PG- 13 (sexuality, mild profanity). At the Lincoln Plaza and the Sunshine.
—-
THE movie musical revival kicks into high gear with “Camp,” a summery confection crammed with fresh young talented faces that’s hard not to love.
“Chicago” may have the Oscar, but “Camp” has the heart and the laughs – and a dozen leads who can actually sing and dance.
The setting is Camp Ovation, a thinly disguised version of Stage Door Manor, the performing-arts camp in the Catskills where the film was shot. One of its former campers is “Camp” helmer Todd Graff, an actor and screenwriter making his impressive directing debut.
Camp Ovation is thrown into a tizzy by what one counselor describes as “an honest-to-goodness straight boy” at a facility where most of the boys seem more interested in other boys and musical theater.
A seemingly “normal” hunk amid self-described freaks, Vlad (Daniel Letterle) immediately sets hearts aflutter among the male and female population.
He’s quickly bunk-hopping from the bitchy blonde Jill (Alana Allen) to the sweet but homely Ellen (Joanna Chilcoat) to Dee (Sasha Allen), who is determined to avoid being tagged as a “fag hag.”
Vlad’s avowed heterosexuality doesn’t stop the insecure lothario from flirting with one of his male roommates – Michael (Robin De Jesus), a sweet pimply Latino teen who was beaten for showing up at his prom in a dress.
Other subplots include Jill’s put-upon roommate Fritzi (Anne Kendrick), who exacts a delicious revenge on Jill involving detergent and a stunning rendition of “Ladies Who Lunch,” and Jenna (Tiffany Taylor), whose parents have wired her mouth shut to make her lose weight – until she belts out the biggest showstopper in a movie crammed with them.
Finally, there is the arrival of Bert (Don Dixon), an embittered, alcoholic composer who hasn’t had a hit since 1989 – but who has carted along a treasure trove of unpublished songs that the kids appropriate for the season-closing show.
While the film is loaded with hilarious show-biz in-jokes – Jill can’t remember appearing with Ellen the previous year in a two-woman play – it presents a view of adolescent yearnings that people far outside this milieu will recognize.
Graff has drawn uniformly excellent performances from his cast of unknowns.
And they can sing and dance up a storm.
The excellent score not only includes top-notch selections from numerous vintage musicals, but excellent new ballads by Michael Gore and Lynn Ahrens, whose “Fame” was obviously among the main inspirations for “Camp.”
“Camp” sometimes shows the strains of a minimal budget, but somehow that only adds to the charms of this little movie that could.
Miss this sleeper at your peril.