Camp Reviews

The comparisons to FAME are inevitable: This rough-hewn but appealing backstage musical, set in a summer camp for stage-struck kids, could easily pass for a "What We Did on Our Summer Vacation" student film straight out of Manhattan's High School of the Performing Arts. The eager-to-please film doesn't waste a second before unleashing the first in a slew of showstoppers, opening with the kind of number usually reserved for first-act closers, the long, gospel-inflected "How Shall I See You Through My Tears." Only then does it get around to introducing this summer's campers: Vlad (Daniel Letterle), an all-American, corn-fed straight boy from the sticks who isn't as perfect as he might seem; Ellen (Joanna Chilcoat), a cute but insecure aspiring actress who wound up asking her own brother to the junior prom; gay teen Michael (Robin De Jesus), went to his prom alone, in a spangly cocktail dress; overweight singer Jenna (Tiffany Taylor), whose hypercritical father insisted she have her jaw wired shut; and diva in her own mind Jill (Alana Allen), who's attended hand and foot by Fritzi (Anna Kendrick), an Eve Harrington in training. With the apparent exception of Vlad, they're all the kind of misfits who may be marginalized in high school, but take center-stage at place like Camp Ovation, where "freaks" are free to be themselves — provided there's a spotlight and orchestra to accompany them. There's a lot of silly stuff that passes for plot — Ellen wonders whether Vlad really likes her; Michael wonders if Vlad is really straight; the director of the climactic benefit show (Don Dixon) is a bitter, drunken has-been — but the film is all about the musical numbers, and they're terrific. The kids mount everything from Dreamgirls to Promises, Promises, with an extra-special emphasis on the work of their idol Stephen Sondheim, who puts in a rare cameo appearance. Ovation is closely based on the real-life Stagedoor Manor, the Catskills' camp where actor-turned-writer/director Todd Graff and performers as diverse as Robert Downey Jr., Jennifer Jason Leigh and Mandy Moore once spent their summers, and where the entire film was shot on a breakneck schedule and a next-to-nothing budget. The pressure often shows: For all its charm, the dramatic moments are awkward and the final act feels rushed and under rehearsed.