The Plague Review: Bullying Drama of Paranoia Requries Suspension of Disbelief

If you’ve ever encountered tween bullying, you’ll know that, long before it gets personal, the process of picking out a target begins by being as annoying as possible; the first person to get ground down by this is easily the most psychologically susceptible. The Plague, the debut of writer-director Charlie Polinger, operates in the same way, bombarding its audience with a relentless score seemingly comprising a small army making irritating taunting sounds, all but asking you to admit defeat. It’s too dumb to be called mental warfare, but when placed in the shoes of a 12-year-old who’s being sized up as a potential target for the boys of a water polo summer camp, it definitely feels like it––at least up to a point. There’s a ceiling to the level of sustained dread Polinger can create at the threat of bullying and ostracization, especially when adults are circling around and not fully oblivious to the situation. It eventually becomes too much of a challenge to continue suspending disbelief at the sheer level of teacher-student negligence required for the narrative to function.

Set in a 2003 that feels like the late 1990s for its surprising abundance of Eurodance needle drops and references to Smash Mouth, The Plague begins with Ben (Everett Blunck) arriving at a California water polo camp an immediate outcast. His mom has just remarried and this appears to be his first port of call after the family moved from the opposite coast; his difference is immediately highlighted when Jake (Kayo Martin) zeroes in on his speech impediment, making him repeat different phrases for their whole lunch table. Jake isn’t an obvious bully, but it’s clear his status as the leader of the pack has been secured by the fact his classmates all have visible physical traits he could use as ammunition towards them if they stepped out of line at any moment––luckily, their attention is squarely on Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), who they declare to have a mythical “plague” due to some undisclosed skin condition. If he sits down next to them, they rush to move tables; if he touches them, they have to immediately run to the showers and rinse themselves off, or they’ll also be considered infected and spurned accordingly. It’s this ecosystem Ben must navigate, and Polinger takes every opportunity to play it up as a living hell, forcing him to avoid the one kid he has anything in common with to hang out with a kid who doesn’t hide that he would turn against Ben at the first opportunity.

Circling this world is Joel Edgerton’s coach, who is aware that one of his students is being targeted––it’s hard to miss when half the cafeteria runs from their table when he comes near––but is ineffectual at handling it. There’s a kernel of a well-observed idea here: who doesn’t have a school memory of a teacher proving they’re inadequate at stopping a bully, or dishing out punishments equally to the bully and kid they’re targeting? This Lord of the Flies-level psychological warfare is hardly kept under wraps, but the degree of obliviousness required by the adult characters for The Plague‘s narrative to function borders on the farcical. Even when viewed through the eyes of a shy tween who’d likely feel like the world is ending if targeted by his peers, it’s hard to take the situation at face value. The insularity of the children’s social circle is unchanged by the ever-present adults at the periphery of this story: when Jake never alters his behavior, even with a teacher present, there’s never the palpable threat requiring him to hide how he or any of his peers are being treated. Everything is out in the open to start with, which just makes the film a prolonged build-up to the obvious pay-off of Ben finally learning to fend for himself––there’s no delineation between the adult and child worlds that would cause him to hide and call this outcome into question.

Which isn’t to say there aren’t well-observed moments. With the boys all on the cusp of their teenage years, there’s a natural imbalance to their knowledge of sexuality, and though it’s not directly stated, the shy, sensitive Ben is clearly lagging behind for any awareness of the birds and the bees. He first attempts to join Jake’s group as they play a game of Would You Rather, where every question is devised around getting someone else to admit something sexually humiliating; later, his first night in the dorm has his bully in the bunk above asking him to talk about a girl from back home so he has something to jerk off to. It’s a deeply confusing place for a boy seemingly yet to have his own awakening, where sex is presented by peers as something every man is supposed to have had, yet also an essential way of humiliating others. One kid getting a boner in public is shunned in a way another loudly masturbating in the dorm room isn’t––the rules don’t make sense, and the dynamics only become more perplexing if you’re trying to fit in, terrified that the next faux pas could leave you stranded on a lunch table by yourself, on the opposite side of the cafeteria.

It’s these moments, when the characters are kept entirely separate from the adult world, that the creeping paranoia is at its most affecting. Whenever Polinger takes a step back to show the bigger picture, he can never quite maintain the intensity of his young protagonist’s headspace.

The Plague opens in theaters on December 24.