Director: David Wain
Writers: Michael Showalter, David Wain
Stars: Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Showalter
Synopsis: Set on the last day of camp, in the hot summer of 1981, a group of counselors try to complete their unfinished business before the day ends.
Some movies that make it into film festivals don’t find distribution. Rarely does a film like Wet Hot American Summer, which got raves from fans during its festival run, struggle to find a distributor. When the investors, not the filmmakers, picked USA Films as the distributor, the company gave the film a limited theatrical run. There were few who saw it in a theater and it made very little money.
Yet, the film gained a new life on home video, DVD, and eventually streaming. By the time streamers had gotten a hold of it, it had become a bona fide cult classic. A few years ago Netflix even paid for two limited series based off the film, which are not as good, but still have good moments.
I, like many people, first saw the film on an internet list of great cult films while I was in college. After that first watch, I was head over heels in love. There are many parts that still make me laugh as hard as the first time I saw them.
In some of the most brilliant physical comedy, camp bad boy Andy (Paul Rudd) is the last to leave the mess hall after breakfast. Instead of clearing his dishes, he knocks them to the floor. Beth (Janeane Garofalo), the camp director, tells him to pick it up. There is a power struggle and Rudd makes the most of playing a teenager with his scoffs and protests, but he relents. As he picks up the pieces of his meal he gets more frustrated and starts dropping things again. The bit is absolute gold, but the icing on the cake is as Andy leaves, he gives Beth one last piece of his mind with a well placed middle finger. It’s a perfect scene in a film with some terrific physical comedy.
What sells scenes like Andy’s meltdown is the sincerity of the actors and the material. While it has parody elements, Wet Hot American Summer doesn’t indulge in overt parody like many films of its kind. Wet Hot American Summer is wholly its own. There is a depth to the silliness and while it is great at being funny, that depth and the message about the need to be yourself wholly and truly, rings utterly true. This is present in Steve’s (Kevin Sussman) strange “talent,” in Katie’s (Marguerite Moreau) confession to Coop (Michael Showalter) that sex is more important to her than love, in Gene’s (Christopher Meloni) unhinged, but ultimately affirming confession about his strange fetishes, and in Ben (Bradley Cooper) and McKinley’s (Michael Ian Black) love.
There’s little reason for there to be such a sweet and very affecting love between two men in this movie, but it’s there and it’s perfect. In a film that has so much innuendo and implied heterosexual promiscuity, the only sex scene present is between Ben and McKinley. The two of them in the hot, sweaty equipment shed is better than anything silly that could have happened between another couple, while also being a little silly as they have to kick soccer balls out of the way and the shelves can barely hold their weight. The scene is perfect, as is the commitment ceremony later, but it is intercut with scenes of Gary (A.D. Miles) and J.J. (Zak Orth) spying and using homophobic slurs. This ominous and likely very prevalent homophobia seemingly threatens the beautiful message. Though, Gary and J.J. redeem themselves and find acceptance, which brings it full circle and doesn’t undercut the warmth already established.
Wet Hot American Summer is an absolute gem of a silly comedy. It should have launched the careers of all these actors into the stratosphere, but it took some time for Hollywood to fully embrace them. Now on the 25th anniversary of its release, we can celebrate it as the goofy, loveable, silly film it is. Hopefully more will come to see it as the great comedy it is and we, the already initiated, will embrace those coming into the fold. To paraphrase Coop, we want you inside of us.
