Crip Camp

◊ ◊ ½

I feel a bit guilty not gushing absolute praise on such an earnest, feel-good documentary. And it is good; quite good, even. But it doesn’t feel like something I would pay money for in the theater. The film starts with a group of disabled young adults attending Camp Jened in 1971. Jened is the eponymous camp, though it is never once referred to as “crip camp” during the film. We meet a group of the young men and women through some remarkably preserved footage. We here about their time at the camp and they way it created belonging and empowered them. We also get a couple of fun, cheeky stories about sexual awakening. That covers approximately the first third of the film. Then, they all go home, the world moves on, and throughout the 70s, many of them become leaders of an emerging civil rights movement. The rest of the film follows their struggle from the 1970s through the 1990s and the passing of the ADA. It is actually interesting. I don’t think I had quite conceived of the fight for rights for the disabled as a civil rights movement with so much in common with racial equality, women’s lib, and queer civil rights; but, it is absolutely the same fight. Watching these young people be bold and confrontational was inspiring (and I thought Queer Nation was the first group to perform sit-ins in the middle of the Manhattan streets, shutting down traffic. Wrong.). This was a sweet and informative film, stitched together with an amazing trove of footage and recent interviews. It’s an impressive feat. It just lacks the searing power of “I Am Not Your Negro,” the magic and grace of “Man on Wire,” the cinematic beauty of “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” the revelations and implications of “Taxi to the Dark Side,” or the stunning originality of “Waltz with Bashir.” Perhaps, that’s too high a bar to set. This was a good movie, and on Netflix, it was perfect.