All of the Camp kids are flawed, or are misfits in their own ways. Vlad, the film's straight lead, played by cute Daniel Letterle, has OCD and an uncontrollable urge to please everybody; his roommate Michael attended his prom in drag and was beaten up; Ellen is the frumpy fag-hag best friend who fancies Vlad; the rest of the characters are gay, black, overweight, overbaring, or sadled with a name like Fritzi. Despite every character having a bit of an 'issue', the movie is not about coming out or racism or sexism, all of these aspects are incidental to the yearning of sexuality and fancying inapproriate or unreciprocated people. In Camp, characters have sex for fun - you'd never get that in Camp Rock! - but no one is chastised for it. There is no real happy ending for the leads either - there's an ending, but Vlad doesn't suddenly realise his gay feelings or anything false. Instead the ending is true to life in that sometimes people just accept feelings and deal with them. Michael (played by Robin de Jesús) is a gay character among several, and at no point is his sexuality made fun of or becomes an issue for his friends, they all accept him. His parents don't, and this is not resolved during the movie, again there is no neat bow to wrap everything up. There's a refreshing honesty here without being depressing: sometimes people's parents don't come round.
Camp is funny, and full of pretty and normal people, enjoying themselves, being themselves, without any of the sugary Disney-coating that mars Camp Rock. Director Todd Graff has crafted a surprisingly touching movie about summer camp and the people who go there to escape and be themselves. I enjoyed it.
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