{"id":369087,"date":"2025-12-24T15:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T15:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369087\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T15:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T15:29:07","slug":"cruelty-spreads-in-thrilling-adolescent-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369087\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruelty spreads in thrilling adolescent drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few films are downright mean enough to capture the reality of being a kid. Being young isn\u2019t just contained in the amber memories of wonder, or expectation, or freedom. It\u2019s 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\u2019s life, something nasty and predatory slips through from the world of adults. It\u2019s this that makes writer-director Charlie Polinger\u2019s The Plague into a sharp yet hard-to-watch debut. Shrinking down the masculine hardships, bottled-up pain, and explosive release of Claire Denis\u2019 Beau Travail<\/a> to better fit a group of preteen water polo players, Polinger\u2019s film ostensibly got made thanks to the help of producer-actor Joel Edgerton. But it\u2019s the young cast, filled with up-and-comers like Everett Blunck (who also starred in last year\u2019s festival film Griffin In Summer<\/a>), who make this anxiety-inducing look at pubescent social structures so thrilling\u2014and so brutal.<\/p>\n

The Plague is explained to us through the eyes of Tom Lerner Water Polo Camp newcomer Ben (Blunck). It\u2019s 2003 and little white boys with bleach-blond hair are saying \u201cOkayyy\u201d like Lil Jon. But even if the film is set two decades ago, the painful bonafides of its clique haven\u2019t aged a day. Pick a year, and you\u2019ll 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\u2019ll sit for lunch in the cafeteria and how he\u2019ll avoid getting himself stuck with an embarrassing nickname after a single conversation with the cool crowd, he finds that he\u2019s already of a higher status than he thought. Even being the newest arrival doesn\u2019t 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 \u201cThe Plague\u201d due to a pimply rash on his face and back. Don\u2019t talk to him, don\u2019t go near him, and definitely don\u2019t touch him.<\/p>\n

Of course, the breakout is just an excuse to pounce upon Eli, who\u2019s just an uncool little weirdo uncomfortable in his own skin. He hides inside a long-sleeve shirt at all hours, wet or dry, spending his ostracized time perfecting sleight-of-hand tricks and trotting out his best Gollum impression (again, the film is set in 2003). He\u2019s not a leper, but he might as well be thanks to The Plague\u2018s insightful understanding of how kids sniff out, then target, vulnerabilities. Riled up by their leader Jake (Kayo Martin, perfectly blonde, sneering, and cruel), the ensemble of teammates bully mostly by omission, but as these kinds of thrillers go, The Plague escalates\u2014and as the campers spiral out of control, their oppression doesn\u2019t stop with Eli.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the film dives into body horror\u2019s sensory deep end\u2014cinematographer Steven Breckon\u2019s enticing slo-mo underwater photography and face-framing close-ups somewhat undermined by Johan Lenox\u2019s relentless score\u2014The Plague quickly hits the bottom of its shallow characters. Ben might show a bit more compassion towards Eli than his peers, but he and the group at large operate more effectively as a swarm. More compelling is the setting, both the constant state of active endurance one must be in at a camp like this (akin to kicking your legs to avoid going under) and its evocation of a specific age. It\u2019s what\u2019s not spoken aloud that\u2019s strongest here, in the panicked and desperate need to conform to a group\u2014a desire equally driven by ego and a survival instinct. <\/p>\n

That sensation permeates the film; when stewing in that hellish cocktail of hormones, the images seep into your skin like its ultra-direct speeches (especially from Edgerton, who plays their preachy coach Daddy Wags) simply can\u2019t. But aside from these shallow moments of over-explanation and a kinetic ending that lifts whole cloth from the aforementioned Beau Travail, this exciting debut boasts some honest and cutting commentary around these angry, confused little boys.<\/p>\n

Director: Charlie Polinger
Writer: Charlie Polinger
Starring: Everett Blunck, Kayo Martin, Kenny Rasmussen, Joel Edgerton
Release Date: December 24, 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few films are downright mean enough to capture the reality of being a kid. Being young isn\u2019t just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-369087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}