We see how different schools and different theater directors deal with the pressure of putting on the shows differently and how they view the award process in various ways. One teacher is very arrogant, suggesting that his kids are better because they have a bigger budget and put on a bigger and better show than their cross-town rival school, which is smaller. Another theater director emphasizes that the kids should do the musicals simply because they have a passion for it and not because they can win awards.
About half of the film shows the putting together of the shows themselves and the second half shows the build-up to the Freddys and the presentation of them. At some point the story goes a bit off the rails as one of the main production members of the Freddy team gets cancer and struggles to keep the show going on while fighting his own medical battle.
The content of this documentary is not all that amazing. It's basically a bunch of awkward kids doing awkward kid things. I certainly had flash-backs to my (very brief) personal history in my high school theater (basically back-stage in two productions) - but those memories are about as visceral as what I saw onscreen here. I never really felt very connected to many of the people in the film and hoped that I would see more out of everyone. That much of the content revolves around a secondary man's fight with cancer is a bit silly. I care about him even less than I care about the kids.
The best thing about this film was a pair of precocious best friends (Ali and Katie) who have a very sharp view of the goings on in the theater world. Basically everything they said was hilarious and they showed that if filmmaker Matthew Kallis had spent more time talking to interesting kids about what they were going through (with no painted-on bullshit), it might have been a much better film.
Stars: 2 of 4
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