Camp **** (2003, Don Dixon, Daniel Letterle, Joanna Chilcoat, Anna Kendrick) – Classic Movie Review 2477

Young showbiz hopefuls join a summer musical camp and put on a show, guided by alcoholic, washed-up Broadway choreographer-songwriter Bert Hanley (Don Dixon).

The talented teens sing their socks off in writer-director Todd Graff’s sweet, heart-on-sleeve, 2003 little Fame update, with a script that’s more sentimental than waspish – but there is plenty of both.

Three Stephen Sondheim show songs are used for the first time in a movie, and the maestro even appears to put his seal of approval on the project.

It’s amateurish – in the proper sense of the word – and says all the right things in the right way about being an outsider and is so generously spirited that you can easily forgive any faults.

It stars Daniel Letterle as Vlad Baumann, Joanna Chilcoat as Ellen Lucas, Robin de Jesus as Michael Flores, Steven Cutts, Vince Rimoldi, Kahiry Bess, Tiffany Taylor, Sasha Allen, Alana Allen and Anna Kendrick in her debut, aged 18, as Fritzi Wagner.

Camp is based on a real camp in the Catskills, New York. Todd Graff was the 11-year-old Robert Downey Jr’s camp counsellor when he was at the summer camp that inspired the film.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2477

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