Adolescence can be scary, especially if you struggle to fit in with your peers. It can be a time of intense pressure and confusion, as you inch toward your adulthood and all its complications. With it comes the burden to prove yourself through the defined constructs of gender and sexuality. The Plague (2025), written and directed by Charlie Polinger, tells the story of a tween, born out of similar fears, trying to flourish in a new environment with same-age peers, while struggling to cope with the pressures that come with that experience. Polinger turns a swimming pool essentially into a battlefield. simmering with tension. That’s how he slowly builds the momentum to a climactic finale where a tense bonding drama swiftly transitions into a revenge tale.
The ending leaves the central character in a delicate position, but the final moments do not offer closure. It inadvertently becomes the introduction to another chapter in the kid’s life, as the tween blues will likely seep into his adult self in some shape or form. Everett Blunck, who gave an impressive performance in the 2024 indie ‘Griffin in Summer,’ plays the lead role here, while Joel Edgerton, Kayo Martin, and Kenny Rasmussen play key supporting roles.
Spoilers Ahead
The Plague (2025) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
What happens in The Plague?
‘The Plague’ centres around a group of 12 / 13-year-olds during a summer camp, when they learn water polo from their coach, Daddy Wags (Joel Edgerton). Although a competitive sport, you won’t usually consider it a breeding ground for cutthroat competition, which we gradually see it become through the eyes of Ben (Everett Blunck), a tween, who isn’t as well-liked as others. His social awkwardness becomes apparent in an early scene where he fumbles when asked to define the sport. He innocently mentions the importance of teamwork and playing together like a family. Other kids start making fun of him, but more so of his awkwardness.
There’s another kid who draws our attention precisely because he doesn’t want to. Unlike others, he wears a long-sleeve T-shirt, which also makes him stand out. At the time, Ben didn’t know the reason behind his shirt or his isolation. He learns about it only during the lunch break. They let him join for a meal, but not the other kid. Soon, Ben realizes that this kid, Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), suffers from leprosy. He wears the long-sleeved shirt to cover long reddish patches on his skin. Jake (Kayo Martin), one of the most outspoken kids from the group, claims that anyone can contract the disease through direct touch (although the WHO notes it won’t be transmitted through a similar casual contact).
Jake derisively calls it the plague and says that it is incurable. He also says that one must wash oneself vigorously within seconds of touching Eli. Ben naively believes every word Jake says. Out of fear of ostracization and a hope for assimilation, he follows suit by staying a few feet away from Eli all the time and ignoring him, especially when someone else is around.
The Haunting Truth of Societal Exclusion
Ben keeps doing everything he can to fit in with other boys, even if it means telling a fabricated story of being with a girl. At night, when everyone else is asleep, he goes to the washroom to see a pimple on his face, worried it would make people believe he has the plague. Later, he accidentally touches Eli in public and rushes to wash himself under running water. Soon, a group of girls their age arrives at the camp, which, due to their age, becomes another reason for competition. It’s likely why he keeps his geeky interests hidden, and so does another kid nicknamed Tic Tac (Elliott Heffernan). They talk enthusiastically about Star Wars but only when there’s no one else around. The same geekiness later becomes central to his bonding with Eli.
Until then, we see his fears of alienation reflected in Eli, who gets teased for his accidental sexual arousal upon seeing the girls. Coach Wags is mature enough to understand that it may happen at his age of transition toward puberty, when kids may not know much about their libido, let alone how it would manifest. Wags uses that awkward moment to teach the kids about compassion, but instead of learning something, they disregard his wishful thinking. Even later, they make empathy feel like a weakness when Ben reveals he is a vegetarian because he feels bad for the animals. At the time, Ben sees Eli walking away with his food tray and follows him. Eli talks about the time when he pretended to have cut his finger, only to show that it was a trick.
Soon after, Ben helps Eli by applying cream to his back, meant to soothe the pain on a red patch. He makes sure no one’s around, but somehow the word gets out that he touched Eli, prompting them to isolate him, fearing he has the plague. Tic Toc admits that plague is something the kids made up, but stays away from Ben out of fear of exclusion.
The Plague (2025) Movie Ending Explained:
How does Ben’s fear of alienation affect his bond with Eli?
Since the kids start avoiding Ben, he starts feeling more and more isolated. One night, he runs away from the camp to a diner to call his mother, asking her to come pick him up. She calls Coach Wags to intervene. Wags arrives at the diner and starts talking about his past fears, when people kept teasing him for his weight, even when he was barely overweight. He doesn’t sugarcoat the truth, thus briefly sharing some of his darker memories from his 20s and 30s, but to make Ben realize how time can sometimes be a cure for our traumas, making us capable of moving on from our pasts. Hearing that, Ben starts crying, but doesn’t expose Jake as the kid who bullied him, fearing that outing Jake would do him more harm than good.
Wags still realizes the truth and confronts Jake. That’s how Ben’s fears come true, making Jake behave brutishly. He and the other kids walk up to Ben when he goes to sleep, covering him with his own blanket after pouring a bunch of cockroaches over his body. Ben wakes up terrified and walks to the washroom to see the damage. Eli follows him, worried. Instead of responding to Eli’s concerns, Ben tries to ignore his own pain and the kids’ brutal apathy by saying, “We’re just messing around. It was a funny joke. That’s what friends do.” In the washroom, he sees scars similar to those on Eli’s body, heightening his fears about having the plague. He violently scratches a bloodclot and bleeds.
What happens to Ben in the end?
After this incident, Ben’s fears turn into vengeful rage, forcing him to get into a fight with Jake while in the water. He scratches Jake, but Coach Wags doesn’t offer him any sympathy, nor does he discipline Ben. In response, Jake pushes Ben down in the water. Wags fears the worst might happen and pulls them out. In light of this situation, Wags gets thrown out of the camp, but it doesn’t solve all of Ben’s problems. Even at a soiree meant for everyone to enjoy together, he stays away from others. That’s when he sees kids teasing Eli for dancing with a cardboard cutout of a female cartoon, which he holds dear, likely throughout the course of the camp.
Ben breaks that board in half, expecting Eli not to embarrass himself that way. Instead, he hurts Eli, prompting him to rush out of the room. After all, it must have been difficult for Eli to accept himself as he is, not what everyone else wanted him to be. Anyhow, Ben follows him to say the opposite of what Coach Wags said during the pep talk in the diner. Wags told him not to feel embarrassed about being different, even if kids like Jake don’t appreciate it. As opposed to that, Ben inadvertently tells Eli not to care about his individuality, but blend in with others as a means to grow up. It sounds more like he himself wants to do. Regardless of his intent, he hurts Eli enough to prompt him to a brutal act of self-harm.
After carrying Eli out of the building with Wags, Ben returns, soaked in rain and blood. He starts dancing by himself to Mobi’s ‘I’m feeling so real,’ without a care in the world, thus drawing attention from everyone else by standing out as the odd one, while everyone else steps away from him. The final seconds represent his delirious mental state, but do not reveal what happens at the end of it. That ambiguity serves a purpose, leading us to reflect on how the camp experience would dictate his life in the foreseeable future.
The film doesn’t clarify whether his impulsive dance helps him be accepted or makes him more of a pariah, leaving it open to interpretation. Yet, the inclusion of that specific song, which also appears earlier in the film, seems to signify his ‘feeling real,’ meaning in touch with his emotions, without worrying how others perceive him. It also hints at the reality of their future, where gradual adjustment to their surroundings would be a part of their lives, when it may not feel as burdensome as it does in the present. That’s also what Wags’ pep-talk was meant to let Ben understand: this too shall pass.
The Plague (2025) Movie Themes Analyzed:
Adolescence, Peer Pressure, and Isolation
‘The Plague’ follows characters just on the cusp of their puberty, where hormonal changes affect their personalities in some shape or form. It informs Ben’s experience as a pre-pubescent kid who had just moved to a new town with his family. While trying to assimilate or not be left alone, he awkwardly succumbs to their peer pressure, turning into a violent person, likely seeing Eli as an adversary for making him stand out. That’s where he starts considering empathy as a weakness, forcing him to be numb to his own senses and to take the reckless step we see him taking in the end. The fear of isolation guides nearly every single child character’s behavior, even if they don’t make it seem so. In this case, the plague represents the same fear of exclusion, also touch-starvation in Eli’s case, which manifests in him tragically using a cardboard cutout instead of an actual person. In Ben’s case, it manifests into rage, prompting him to break the cutout, possibly seeing Eli as the reason for his isolation.
