The Plague
By all accounts, The Plague could have been another moody coming-of-age tale cloaked in indie thriller aesthetics. But Charlie Polinger’s debut feature, fresh from Cannes, transforms a familiar setting – a water polo summer camp in the early 2000s – into something eerily primal. Comparisons to Lord of the Flies aren’t just apt; they’re earned, particularly in one jarring sequence where the boys, whipped into a mob-like frenzy, ransack a dumpster area in performative rebellion. The scene plays less like juvenile mischief and more like ritual humiliation – a reminder that cruelty, when shared, becomes sport.
While the protagonist is the sweet, sensitive, new-in-town Ben (Everett Blunck), the heart of the story is Jake (Kayo Martin). The unofficial leader of the boys – and of the bullying – he rarely throws the first insult, instead goading others into doing it for him. There’s menace in his passivity: watchful, calculating, portrayed by Martin with a level of observance rarely found at such a young age. Polinger smartly avoids caricature, rooting Jake’s edge in a familiar, quietly tragic backstory – a troubled home and an older brother revered for his athletic prowess.
The “plague” of the title is less a plot device than a fog of paranoia. There’s no logic to its spread – just a vague rash and the threat of ostracism. Its vagueness is the point: an adolescent fear that can’t be named, only passed around, like a secret or a curse. It’s part myth, part metaphor and entirely effective.
Water polo, surprisingly, proves a compelling cinematic choice. Polinger and cinematographer Steven Breckon film it like a battleground ballet – all limbs and lunges, punctuated by quiet brutality. Fights don’t erupt into bloody brawls; they unravel underwater, in sudden, suffocating silence, where one boy yanks another down by the ankle and holds him just a beat too long. The violence here is less about blows and more about breath, tension, control – and the effect is deeply unnerving.
While not every emotional crescendo lands, The Plague lingers – moody, murky and brutal in that particular way only adolescence can be. Like Lord of the Flies, it reminds us how thin the line is between games and cruelty, especially when no one is watching.
Christina Yang
The Plague does not have a release date yet.
Read more reviews from our Cannes Film Festival coverage here.
For further information about the event visit the Cannes Film Festival website here.
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