Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

I know a “you either hate it or you love it” movie when I see one. Sitting in the cinema watching this, there was no doubt in my mind that this was exactly the kind of movie I was watching. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is the latest movie by American director Jane Schoenbrun. It’s their first release since I Saw The TV Glow, a movie that has gained a loyal cult following over the last few years.

We all know that art, and consequently cinema, is subjective. That’s one of the things that makes it so special. There’s no real right or wrong way to watch a movie or feel about it. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been reading reviews and browsing social media to see what people have thought of this movie, and the sentiments have been about as polarising as you could get. For some, Schoenbrun’s latest movie resonated with them on a deeply personal level. They loved it for how meta, dreamlike and unique it is. For others, it felt pretentious, surface-level and completely over the top.

Sadly, I fall in the second category.

Camp Miasma might actually be one of my least favourite movies of the year, which is a real shame because there are a couple of scenes in the film that showed it had the potential to be something really special. Unfortunately, those moments were few and far between, and the rest of the movie ended up being a big, convoluted mess.

Contrary to what a lot of people say, there is such a thing as a movie being “too artsy”. Don’t get me wrong, you can have a unique style and voice to your film and rely on themes that aren’t overly explained or constantly in your face, and still create a phenomenal piece of cinema. But this movie, to me, felt like an amalgamation of themes, messages, visual ideas and storylines, with the focus seemingly being on trying to fit all of these things into one movie without stopping to think about whether they actually worked together. Ultimately, it tries to be too many things all at once, only to fail to be about anything at all.

Another thing that I really disliked, much to my own personal shock, was the egregious and shameless product placement. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever been bothered by product placement in a movie before in my life. At the end of the day, it’s part of the game and helps inflate the budget of a production, so I’ve never really minded it. But in this movie...wow. There’s a five-minute scene where the film straight up turns into a KFC commercial.

Coming from someone who loves a good script and, even more so, great dialogue, this was painful to sit through. The movie is genuinely at its best when the characters don’t speak, which should tell you everything you need to know about the overall level of writing. Watching this, it was the first time in my twenty-seven years of life that I genuinely considered walking out of the cinema because of how much I wasn’t enjoying the film. Alas, I stuck it out, and the ending was...well, just as terrible as the rest of it.

There are also a lot of things to admire about this movie. It looks superb; the cinematography is absolutely breathtaking at times. Although I don’t think the story quite sticks the landing when it comes to what it’s trying to say, the world-building is intricate and masterfully done. You genuinely feel like you’re at Camp Miasma while watching it. It’s got a great soundtrack and some strong acting too, with Amanda Fix being my favourite. And to give Jane Schoenbrun the credit they deserve, the vision they had for this movie is very clear. It just so happens that it didn’t work for me, and that’s perfectly fine.

To quote the movie itself: "You can always turn it off."