Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Charlie Polinger
Starring: Everett Blunck, Kayo Martin, Kenny Rasmussen, Joel Edgerton
"Want to know my favourite day of high school?" an adult character asks the protagonist of writer/director Charlie Polinger's coming of age drama/horror movie The Plague. "The last day," is his cutting self response. Polinger has made an anti-nostalgia movie for everyone who couldn't wait to become an adult, to escape the horrors of spending five days a week walking a social tightrope among your peers.
The Plague might be the most realistic depiction of adolescent bullying ever put on screen. Polinger nails the arbitrary nature of bullying that so many other attempts at dramatising the subject fail to recognise. At my school at least, you were less likely to be bullied for your race, religion, sexuality or body image and more because you committed some social faux pas that kids would cruelly seize upon and never let you forget. For Ben (Everett Blunck), The Plague's 12-year-old protagonist, it's the way he pronounces "stop" in his Boston accent that is seized upon by Jake (Kayo Martin), the most popular kid at his summer water polo camp.
Luckily for Ben, Jake has a clearer target in Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), an overweight movie nerd with a love of special effects. Jake has spread rumours that Eli has contracted a mystery disease labelled "the plague," due to to the severe rash on his back. The other kids keep their distance from Eli, convinced that any contact with him will spell their doom. Eli is so ostracised that he sleeps alone in the locker room rather than sharing a dorm with his tormentors.
While Ben publicly joins the shunning of Eli, he secretly recognises that he has more in common with this social pariah than with the other more confident boys. He begins sneaking off to hang out with Eli, impressed by his pop culture knowledge and the gory pranks he has mastered, including at one point convincing Ben that he has cut off his finger. When Jake learns of Ben's friendship with Eli, he spreads the rumour that Ben has now contracted the plague. To Ben's horror, a rash does indeed begin to spread across his torso.
There is much of Picnic at Hanging Rock in The Plague's ambiguous horror and school setting. The audience is left to make their own mind up whether Jake is actually correct and there is indeed a contagion spreading through the camp, or if it's simply the sort of fungal infection that so often prospers in such settings. The biggest influence however is undoubtedly Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. Eli is essentially this film's Private Pyle, and Rasmussen channels Vincent D'Onofrio's unnerving performance as the bullied Private Pyle, right down to the dead-eyed stare of both actors' final scenes. As Matthew Modine's Private Davis did with Pyle, here Ben takes out his frustration with Eli through his own kind of bullying. The film's cruellest moment is not between Jake and Ben, but between Ben and Eli, the latter delivering a stern warning that Eli's life will be a nightmare if he doesn't stop painting a target on his own back. Unlike Ben, who willingly compromises himself to appease his peers, Eli is true to himself, and there is something profoundly tragic in seeing Ben attempt to crush his innocent individuality.
But make no mistake, the real villain here is the sociopathic Jake. Martin's performance is terrifyingly recognisable. Jake is undoubtedly charismatic, so we fully understand why the other boys fall in line behind him, and he has an intelligence that sees him outwit even adults like Joel Edgerton's coach, who is proven out of his depth when it comes to dealing with someone like Jake. Martin's performance suggests that Jake is deeply troubled himself and that he's probably lashing out at an easy target as a result of being victimised himself elsewhere in life. There is a wonderfully played moment in which Jake briefly glances across the food hall at the now excluded Ben, and for a split second we see a glimpse of regret cross Jake's eyes before he quickly returns to jostling his friends. If there were any justice, Martin would be receiving the level of praise for his performance here as Owen Cooper has had lavished upon him for his role in Netflix's hot button drama Adolescence.
As Ben, Blunck is every bit as good in this dramatic role as he recently was in his comedic turn in Griffin in Summer. The young actor embodies the confusion and frustration that every good kid feels when it becomes apparent that being a good person doesn't get you very far in life, and certainly not in the Darwinian jungle of an all-boys school.
The Plague is on UK/ROI VOD from April 20th.
