Molly Gordon and Ben Platt in Theater Camp (Sundance Institute)

Cinema history repeats itself at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Back in 2003, Todd Graff’s winsome musical comedy Camp, about teenage thespians putting on a show in the woods, spotlighted Anna Kendrick and Robin de Jesus among its young cast. Theater Camp, as its title indicates, treads the same boards. Even if one hadn’t seen the earlier film, this year’s model feels like a bus-and-truck show at the end of its tour. Obviously improvised by its adult cast members to the point of repetition, the flabby film rambles on, like an uninspired Saturday Night Live sketch.

The first disappointment for viewers results from a bait and switch. Joan Rubinsky, played by the always dependable Amy Sedaris, has run the upstate New York theater camp for kids AndironACTS for decades. However, while attending a middle school musical production, she falls into a coma as the result of flashing strobe lights, apparently becoming involved in “the first Bye Bye Birdie-related accident in Passaic County,” according to a title card—one of the better guffaws. Sadly, Joan disappears from the movie. Her doofus son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro), is now in charge, and boasts to the camera that he’s up for the job, given that he has BDE, business development expertise, that is. However, unknown to the faculty and campers, the camp faces foreclosure.

Among the perennial mentors who return as faculty members are two aspiring actors caught in the teaching rut, head of drama Amos (Ben Platt) and music instructor Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon). Every summer the campers perform in an original show, created by Amos and Rebecca-Diane. This year it will be a tribute to the camp’s founder called Still, Joan, except a day before the opening, Rebecca-Diane, who’s in charge of composing the finale, is nowhere to be found.

Making their feature film debut, directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman take their cues from the mockumentary format, with characters self-consciously addressing the camera, when the wandering lens isn’t catching unguarded moments throughout the campground. Yet the dialogue lacks the comic bite and zippy pace to be considered in the same league as Abbott Elementary or Modern Family. It’s more loosey-goosey, with the adults flying by the seat of their pants, often repeating the same schtick. The best example of a recent movie influenced by this genre is last year’s Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul, a less raunchy and more sincere satire on organized religion than HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones.

By far, the most valuable team players here are the kids, an ensemble of about 20 teens who are up for anything. They lack the stiffness and self-consciousness of their grown-up peers and are genuinely committed to the material than any of the adults. The spotlight should be more on them.

Theater Camp made news when it was acquired by Searchlight Pictures for reportedly $8 million. Its enthusiastic reception feels as though it’s the result of the infusive film festival bubble—this reviewer screened the film online. Yet given the lackluster humor, this movie is more likely to meet the fate of other high-priced Sundance purchases, both musical comedies in their own fashion: Patti Cake$, acquired in 2017 for $9.5 million by Searchlight, and Hamlet 2, Focus Feature’s $10 million gamble from 2008. It grossed half of the acquisition price, while the former settled for $1.5 million.