Ben Platt makes awkwardness hard to miss, with precise singing and performances that can be too emphatic for a close-up. We like him best when that excess is the joke, as it is in Theater Camp.
Fi1m perspective
In Theater Camp (2023), Ben Platt’s Amos Klobuchar teaches drama with no apparent suspicion that he might be too much. Platt does not soften him or ask us to admire the performer’s good sense behind the character’s lack of it. We laughed at Amos because his self-importance goes unchecked, including by the actor playing him. We rate that willingness to be ridiculous, particularly in a film so fond of the people it is teasing.
He was already playing an outsider in Pitch Perfect (2012), as the magic-obsessed a cappella singer Benji Applebaum. We liked its musical invention, which does much to keep a familiar competition story moving. It remains a sound recommendation, though our enthusiasm is for the ensemble rather than Platt alone. The role that defined him came on stage, originating the anxious title character in the Broadway production of Dear Evan Hansen (2016).
Reprising Evan in the film of Dear Evan Hansen (2021) exposed the difficulty of bringing that stage performance close to a camera. The physical tics and emphatic posture attracted criticism for making a high-school character harder to believe. His precision with voice and body can make anxiety unmistakable, but it can also leave us noticing the acting. A performance does not become more intimate simply because we can see it better.
Amos gives those emphatic habits a comic purpose. Platt co-wrote Theater Camp with Molly Gordon, Noah Galvin and Nick Lieberman; Gordon and Lieberman direct, and Gordon plays his fellow drama teacher Rebecca-Diane. Their familiarity with children’s theatre gives the comedy conviction, although we wanted a less indulgent script. The thin middle is a writing problem, and Platt shares responsibility for it.
There is a useful contrast in Ayo Edebiri’s Janet, who teaches stage combat by asking the children what they think it is. She does almost nothing and gets the biggest laughs, while Platt commits himself to Amos’s excesses. We would like to see him trust that smaller scale more often, without losing the nerve that makes Amos work. Start with Theater Camp, provided bursts of comedy will do and a consistently sharp script is not a requirement.
Biography
Ben Platt is an American actor and singer. Born Benjamin Schiff Platt on 24 September 1993 in Los Angeles, he is the son of film and theatre producer Marc Platt. He began his career in musical theatre as a child and appeared in productions including The Sound of Music (2006) and The Book of Mormon (2012–2015).
Platt originated the title role in the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen (2015–2017), winning the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical, as well as a Grammy and a Daytime Emmy. He reprised the role in the 2021 film adaptation.
His film credits include the Pitch Perfect series (2012–2015) and Theater Camp (2023), on which he also served as writer and producer. He has starred in the Netflix series The Politician (2019–) and appeared in Ricki and the Flash (2015) and The People We Hate at the Wedding (2022).
