Cruelty spreads like The Plague in thrilling adolescent drama
The peer pressure between a boys' water polo camp comes to a head in the debut from writer-director Charlie Polinger.
Photo: Independent Film Company
Few films are downright mean enough to capture the reality of being a kid. Being young isn’t just contained in the amber memories of wonder, or expectation, or freedom. It’s also defined by all the abuse doled out by your peers, the bullies and bastards pressuring and cajoling and probing for weaknesses. For every beautiful thing observed and incorporated into a child’s life, something nasty and predatory slips through from the world of adults. It’s this that makes writer-director Charlie Polinger’s The Plague into a sharp yet hard-to-watch debut. Shrinking down the masculine hardships, bottled-up pain, and explosive release of Claire Denis’ Beau Travail to better fit a group of preteen water polo players, Polinger’s film ostensibly got made thanks to the help of producer-actor Joel Edgerton. But it’s the young cast, filled with up-and-comers like Everett Blunck (who also starred in last year’s festival film Griffin In Summer), who make this anxiety-inducing look at pubescent social structures so thrilling—and so brutal.
The Plague is explained to us through the eyes of Tom Lerner Water Polo Camp newcomer Ben (Blunck). It’s 2003 and little white boys with bleach-blond hair are saying “Okayyy” like Lil Jon. But even if the film is set two decades ago, the painful bonafides of its clique haven’t aged a day. Pick a year, and you’ll find the ridiculous piece of pop culture being repeated as loudly as possible for laughs, to prove some sort of worth to the group. As Ben figures out where he’ll sit for lunch in the cafeteria and how he’ll avoid getting himself stuck with an embarrassing nickname after a single conversation with the cool crowd, he finds that he’s already of a higher status than he thought. Even being the newest arrival doesn’t make him a member of the lowest caste at camp. That dishonor belongs to Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), who all the other kids refer to as “The Plague” due to a pimply rash on his face and back. Don’t talk to him, don’t go near him, and definitely don’t touch him.