The undercurrents of adolescent cruelty churn queasily in Charlie Polinger’s stylish first feature, “The Plague.”
The title of Polinger’s film might bring to mind Stephen King or recent global history, but “The Plague” is set entirely around the clear, chlorinated pools and shadowy hallways of a water polo camp, circa 2003. There, 12-year-old Ben (Everett Blunck), a scrawny and sensitive kid, arrives for the second session. That’s a key detail: Is there any greater horror than joining a summer camp where the friend groups are already established?
But there is really only one group: a lewd and boisterous lot led by a smirking, cocksure kid named Jake (Kayo Martin). And there is one outcast: Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), the kind of 12-year-old who’s obviously smart but whose awkward, introverted manner and fondness for things such as magic tricks and “Les Miserables” inevitably make him an outsider. He also is covered in acne and has rashes across his back. Jake and the rest all say he has the plague. “No cure for him,” Jake tells Ben.
These are the troubled coming-of-age waters that “The Plague” swims in. From the start, it’s clear that Polinger, who also wrote the film, has a keen eye for both darkly gleaming surfaces and for the roiling torments that lurk below. “The Plague” is by no means charting new ground when it comes to adolescent torments; this is a movie working with very recognizable preteen types. But Polinger’s talent for crafting ominous, murky atmospheres and perceptive adolescent dynamics make “The Plague” an auspicious debut feature.
While coming-of-age tales have played out before on baseball diamonds and football gridirons, the deep pools of water polo are a more novel setting. From the start, Polinger’s camera, working with cinematographer Steven Breckon in 35 mm, drifts eerily toward the quiet frenzy underwater: the kicking legs and agitated bubbles. Their entry to adulthood is a sink-or-swim, with nothing to stand on.
When their coach (Joel Edgerton, also a producer) asks what water polo is, he calls on Ben, who offers: “Working together as one big family, or whatever.” But far from collective, the world of “The Plague” is primal and survivalist. The coach is kind but ineffectual. Parents are distant and out of reach. This is “Lord of the Flies” in the pool.
That connection is most clear one night when the boys sneak out to some abandoned building, make a bonfire, smash a bunch of stuff and watch as Eli — who usually isn’t even allowed in their presence — dances by spinning wildly around. Ben is more sensitive than Jake and his pals, and he looks concerned for Eli as soon as he arrives. But he’s also more anxious about his own, tenuous-at-best place in the group, and he uses this moment to crash into Eli, knock him down and then make a show of cleaning off any “plague” residue on his arm.
In “The Plague,” ostracism is as permanent and irremediable as any pandemic infection. As big-screen bullies go, Jake is a classic one, terrifically played with smarmy malice by Martin. Jake isn’t taller or stronger than the rest, but he has a maturely manipulative feel for weak points. He doesn’t so much unleash putdowns as he repeats back an awkward answer and lets his victim twist in the wind. Psychologically, he towers over the rest.
It’s clear enough that “The Plague” is building toward some eruption of violence. Eli even looks a little like a young Vincent D’Onofrio in “Full Metal Jacket.” Pain in the “The Plague,” though, manifests itself inwardly. The most tragic thing in it is that even Eli seems to think “the plague” is real, that there really is something wrong with him. After briefly befriending him, Ben develops pimples and rashes of his own. Does he want to convince the others that there’s no such thing as “the plague,” or does he just want them to know he doesn’t have it?
Polinger’s film isn’t a comfortable watch and it’s not meant to be. It gets under the skin. That it’s drawn partially from its director’s own memories is surely one source of its potency. Yet because it’s a movie about childhood that's clearly not for kids, one can shake off “The Plague,” grateful to have left adolescence behind. This is a movie that makes you all the more thankful for adulthood, just as it renews your sympathy for those still wading such daunting waters.
“The Plague,” an Independent Film Company release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for language, sexual material, self-harm/bloody images, and some drug and alcohol use — all involving children. Running time: 93 minutes. Three stars out of four.
This image released by IFC shows Kenny Rasmussen in a scene from "The Plague." (Independent Film Compnay via AP)
This image released by IFC shows Joel Edgerton in a scene from "The Plague." (Independent Film Compnay via AP)
This image released by IFC shows a scene from "The Plague." (Independent Film Compnay via AP)
Climate change worsened by human behavior made 2025 one of the three hottest years on record, scientists said.
It was also the first time that the three-year temperature average broke through the threshold set in the 2015 Paris Agreement of limiting warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times. Experts say that keeping the Earth below that limit could save lives and prevent catastrophic environmental destruction around the globe.
The analysis from World Weather Attribution researchers, released Tuesday in Europe, came after a year when people around the world were slammed by the dangerous extremes brought on by a warming planet.
Temperatures remained high despite the presence of a La Nina, the occasional natural cooling of Pacific Ocean waters that influences weather worldwide. Researchers cited the continued burning of fossil fuels — oil, gas and coal — that send planet-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
“If we don’t stop burning fossil fuels very, very, quickly, very soon, it will be very hard to keep that goal” of warming, Friederike Otto, co-founder of World Weather Attribution and an Imperial College London climate scientist, told The Associated Press. “The science is increasingly clear.”
Extreme weather events kill thousands of people and cost billions of dollars in damage annually.
WWA scientists identified 157 extreme weather events as most severe in 2025, meaning they met criteria such as causing more than 100 deaths, affecting more than half an area’s population or having a state of emergency declared. Of those, they closely analyzed 22.
That included dangerous heat waves, which the WWA said were the world's deadliest extreme weather events in 2025. The researchers said some of the heat waves they studied in 2025 were 10 times more likely than they would have been a decade ago due to climate change.
“The heat waves we have observed this year are quite common events in our climate today, but they would have been almost impossible to occur without human-induced climate change,” Otto said. “It makes a huge difference.”
Meanwhile, prolonged drought contributed to wildfires that scorched Greece and Turkey. Torrential rains and flooding in Mexico killed dozens of people and left many more missing. Super Typhoon Fung-wong slammed the Philippines, forcing more than a million people to evacuate. Monsoon rains battered India with floods and landslides.
The WWA said the increasingly frequent and severe extremes threatened the ability of millions of people across the globe to respond and adapt to those events with enough warning, time and resources, what the scientists call “limits of adaptation.” The report pointed to Hurricane Melissa as an example: The storm intensified so quickly that it made forecasting and planning more difficult, and pummeled Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti so severely that it left the small island nations unable to respond to and handle its extreme losses and damage.
This year's United Nations climate talks in Brazil in November ended without any explicit plan to transition away from fossil fuels, and though more money was pledged to help countries adapt to climate change, they will take more time to do it.
Officials, scientists, and analysts have conceded that Earth’s warming will overshoot 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), though some say reversing that trend remains possible.
Yet different nations are seeing varying levels of progress.
China is rapidly deploying renewable energies including solar and wind power — but it is also continuing to invest in coal. Though increasingly frequent extreme weather has spurred calls for climate action across Europe, some nations say that limits economic growth. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Trump administration has steered the nation away from clean-energy policy in favor of measures that support coal, oil and gas.
“The geopolitical weather is very cloudy this year with a lot of policymakers very clearly making policies for the interest of the fossil fuel industry rather than for the populations of their countries," Otto said. “And we have a huge amount of mis- and disinformation that people have to deal with.”
Andrew Kruczkiewicz, a senior researcher at the Columbia University Climate School who wasn't involved in the WWA work, said places are seeing disasters they aren't used to, extreme events are intensifying faster and they are becoming more complex. That requires earlier warnings and new approaches to response and recovery, he said.
“On a global scale, progress is being made," he added, "but we must do more.”
Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.
Read more of AP’s climate coverage.
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FILE - Debris surrounds damaged homes along the Black River, Jamaica, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025, in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
FILE - Tourists use umbrellas to shelter against the sun outside Hagia Sophia mosque during a hot summer day in Istanbul Aug. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)
FILE - Local residents and volunteers work together to battle an encroaching wildfire in Larouco, northwestern Spain, Aug. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Lalo R. Villar, File)
FILE - People traverse a flooded street in Poza Rica, Veracruz state, Mexico, Oct. 15, 2025, after torrential rain. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez, File)
FILE - Grace Chyuwei pours water on Joe Chyuwei to help with the heat Aug. 3, 2025, in Death Valley National Park, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
