This is the debut feature film of writer-director Charlie Polinger, with the  perfect casting of Rebecca Dealy, and the collaboration of cinematographer Steven Breckon, sound designer Damien Volpe and composer Johan Lenox, which makes this feature film on boyhood at a water polo camp in the Summer of 2003  an enthralling experience to watch.

12-13 years old Ben (Everett Blunk) is sent by his mother to the water polo camp, the place is also a psychological trap for him, among a group of same age swimmers, a seldom visible instructor Daddy Wags (Joel Edgerton), tormenter leader Jake (Kayo Martin) and social outcast Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), all of them outstanding in their roles.

The film made me think of Michael Foucault’s theories on institutional education and how the system we have grown up in allows things to happen, in this story linked to water sports, set in a camp with locker rooms and dorms. The way water is presented in the film is poetry and a mirror of the conscious and unconscious.

As for the plague as an affliction, in the film translates into incredibly contagious pimples on the skin, rash over the body (which is said affects the nervous system), but the plague may also refer to the group of mean teen boys, horrific to each other, to whom bullying of being the bully is usual and where kindness is not accepted.  There may be another lecture of the plague that refers to us, humans, as a calamity; quoting Albert Camus: can we cease being plague-stricken?.

The film is a worthwhile experience to watch and enjoy since it resonates in several levels.  And as Ben, the protagonist, keeping himself mentally healthy will make him a better combatant against whatever plague he´s fighting,  which also applies to each one of us.

Premiered at Cannes Film Festival  Un Certain Regard 2025,  Charlie Polinger received the Grand Special Prize at Deauville Film Festival 2025.

9 / 10