‘Happy Campers’ Review: Amy Nicholson Documents the Final Summer of a Working Class Paradise
Courtesy of Grasshopper Film
July blows by, August commences, and the final days of summer draw nearer each day as Labor Day weekend stealthily approaches. Lovers of the summertime understand this distinctive melancholy as the seasons start to change, but few comprehend the end of this era better than the shoreside community of Inlet View Campground, the subject at the heart of Happy Campers. Produced, shot, and directed by documentarian Amy Nicholson, Happy Campers captures the final summer of an eclectic working class camping park on Chincoteague Island, Virginia, just before the tight-knit neighborhood is dismantled and repurposed by a wealthy land development company. Through her subjective and intimate approach to Happy Campers, Nicholson builds a beautifully emotional portrait of place and its inextricable connections to memory and community.
It is the summer of 2019, and Nicholson's camera observes the residents of Inlet View Campground, a scruffy vicinity of Chincoteague Island comprised of mobile homes and rickety cottages. Despite their humble dwellings, the park's residents take pride in their abodes, most of which are flourished with DIY decorations that draw inspiration from the surrounding seascapes and the area's relaxed philosophies of living. The inhabitants are not bothered by their close-quartered living, instead embracing it to build camaraderie with their neighbors. Porch hangouts migrate from home to home, massive communal feasts and celebrations flourish, and deep-seated friendships thrive. With the campground set to close for good on September 1 of that same year, the residents of Inlet View Campground reflect on the memories they have created, the connections they have made, and the happiness they have experienced in their unassuming little paradise.
Courtesy of Grasshopper Film
Having found previous inspiration for her work in Coney Island carnies and champion muskrat skinners, Nicholson's attraction to the locals of Inlet View feels like a natural continuum of her fascination with marginalized pockets of the American working class. Inspired by family vacations to Chincoteague during her youth, Nicholson had bought a property on the campground with ideas of documenting the community before the news had broken that it would be redeveloped. This personal perspective bleeds into the footage captured for the film, with the director's camera often feeling more like an integrated member of Inlet View's society than a voyeuristic outsider.
Nicholson chose to shoot Happy Campers herself to minimize the chances of a film crew disturbing the harmony of Inlet View. Her camera remains rather still, keeping a distance from its subjects and a wide frame, platforming their everyday actions and interactions with a patient gaze. The area's picturesque bayside landscapes hold the background of many scenes, reflecting its centering presence within the region. The documentary's editing brings the audience in and out of the conversations between residents, capturing a dynamic range of sentiments as the end of summer and their time at the campground grows nearer.
Courtesy of Grasshopper Film
Happy Campers sensitively showcases the motley personalities that breathe energy into Inlet View Campground. From all parts of the country and all walks of life, the campers find family in one another under the influence of their unlikely oasis. Figures who have vacationed at the campground with their families for many generations intermingle with relative newcomers chasing love to the shores of Chincoteague, forming a genuine closeness with one another unexperienced by most communities.
While other works might emphasize the struggles faced by the campground's working-class residents, the documentary's approach chooses to focus on the quality of life that they treasure on the island. Nicholson does not linger on the news of the campground's redevelopment or the faceless entity funding such a project; after all, that narrative is regrettably all too commonly understood within the modern-day context. Inlet View's inhabitants are shown laughing off financial issues and material extravagance, particularly comically in a memorable scene where a resident shares that an opossum lives under her kitchen sink. This hyperfocused priority on depicting the sanctity of the location and togetherness sets Happy Campers apart from similar portrayals, which often become bogged down in attempting to capture the larger socio-economic picture.
Through its integrated process and celebration of its subjects, Happy Campers paints Inlet View Campground as a site of deep human connection and a haven of significant remembrance for its multifaceted residents. Nicholson's considerate efforts create a sentimental memorial to a place that is no longer there, one that lives on within the souls of those who experienced its tranquil charm firsthand.
4/5
‘Happy Campers’ world premiered at DOCNYC Fest in 2023, where it received a special mention in the official competition. With distribution by Grasshopper Film, the documentary will begin its U.S. theatrical release on August 7 at IFC Center in New York City, with a Los Angeles screening starting on August 21 at Laemmle Theaters. Click here for more information about ‘Happy Campers.’