To give the plot of this film in one or two sentences makes it sound instantly interesting – basically a teenage summer camp are given a game where a third of them are SS guards, the rest are Jews trying to escape extermination. It had my attention just from this because I was interested to see how it sold this as a plot, but more importantly, what it actually did with it from there. Despite this going in, at the end of the film I was not entirely sure what it had done.
The film focuses on Lizzie as the main character, and we follow her as she rebels against the game, as she tries to make her interest known to a boy she likes, and as she finds herself drawn into the game by how into it others have become. There is a lot that could have been done here but for some reason the film didn't feel like it really went at anything. At times it plays like a rather odd coming- of-age film crossed with an odd role-playing situation, and I'm not sure if the spirit of non-conformance to free oneself was something that the film was trying to fit together or not, but it didn't work that way if it was. There are elements here where the teenagers quickly take to their roles – with some of them huddled in shelters almost awaiting their fate, while the SS guards seem to enjoy their control very quickly – we know this is a real phenomenon, but here it doesn't convince and it isn't really clear what they should be doing.
Perhaps it is my lack of context (having never been Jewish, or a teenage girl in an American summer camp), but for me it was not clear what the film was about – either on the surface or as subtext. It is professionally delivered; looking polished and well made, but the plot left me cold as it didn't seem to have a clear agenda as to what it was trying to achieve and there seemed to be too many things in here to allow that lack of control not to become an issue. It sounds interesting and technically it is well made, but the material needed a much tighter control and delivery than it had.
