DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:

A tense new coming-of-age film follows a group of boys at a water polo summer camp. The film is called "The Plague."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE PLAGUE")

EVERETT BLUNCK: (As Ben) There's nothing wrong with me.

KAYO MARTIN: (As Jake) OK.

BLUNCK: (As Ben) The plague is fake.

MARTIN: (As Jake) OK.

BLUNCK: (As Ben) So can you please tell everyone that I'm good.

MARTIN: (As Jake) I thought you said it's fake.

BLUNCK: (As Ben) I mean, it is, right?

ESTRIN: The film uses an austere visual style and a disquieting soundtrack to draw viewers in to the brutal world of these boys. Charlie Polinger wrote and directed the movie. He says he wanted to capture that special kind of horror of living through adolescence.

CHARLIE POLINGER: When you're 12 or 13 years old, even really small things can feel enormous. And so my goal in directing it was to really immerse the audience in the experience of being 12 again, where every glance and every sort of whisper and all the social dynamics feel incredibly high-stakes and intense.

ESTRIN: This is your first feature film. How did you come up with the idea?

POLINGER: So essentially, during COVID, I was staying with my parents in D.C. And I caught COVID, actually, and I ended up quarantining to my childhood bedroom, and my mom asked me to clean out all my stuff. And I was going through everything, and I found these old journals I had kept at a sports camp, essentially, and I was rereading them. And this idea of the plague was this game that we played, and I was kind of, like, time-machined back to when I was 12. And I was really vividly remembering all these experiences and all these people. And from there, I just went straight into writing a first draft.

ESTRIN: The film is called "The Plague." Without giving away too much, what is the plague?

POLINGER: So the plague is this concept that the boys have created where, essentially, one of the kids, Eli, who is a little bit socially awkward and has kind of bad skin, and he has kind of, like, a rash on his body. And all the boys say that the cause for this is this kind of mysterious disease called the plague and that if you touch him, you'll catch it.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE FILM")

MARTIN: (As Jake) There's no official prognosis, so we call it the plague. Like, those aren't regular pimples. Those are plague pimples. It's a plague face.

POLINGER: Jake, who's sort of the ringleader of the group, is telling everyone about this idea of the plague, and I think that there's this feeling from everyone else that maybe he's just kidding and he's kind of being a bit of a jerk, or maybe he's actually really serious about it. And I think that a character like Jake is the type of person who if you act like it's something serious, he'll make fun of you for not realizing it was a joke. And if you act like, it's a joke, he'll look at you like, no, this is actually serious. I'm not joking. And so, suddenly, something that maybe the group wouldn't take very seriously becomes serious because no one really knows if there's permission to treat it as a joke or not.

ESTRIN: In your film, all the boys play some kind of role. There are the bullies, and then there are the bullied. There's the top bully, and then there are the enablers. Which one was you when you were that age?

POLINGER: I think that I obviously connect a lot to the protagonist, Ben, who is kind of trying to navigate his way between the social hierarchy and all the kind of - the different personalities. But I really do think that I have been all the different boys in certain moments of my childhood. And I think talking to people who've seen the film, that, you know, most people have had a moment in their life where they've been like Jake, who's sort of the bully character, or they've been like Eli, who's the one who's ostracized. And I think that we've all been in a situation where we crave to belong so badly, and we're really torn with compromising our own values to fit in with a group.

ESTRIN: Let's talk about the soundtrack. You won best sound creation award at Cannes Film Festival, and the soundtrack is so extraordinary and unusual. How did you find what the sound of this film should be?

POLINGER: So I was working with a friend of mine, Johan Lenox. We've known each other since college. And he basically started sending me these voice memos in the middle of the night of himself chanting and making these strange, kind of, like, weirdly-pitched recordings of his voice and slowing them down and all kinds of things like that. And he was saying that, to him, that felt like these voices in his head and that feeling of being in middle school where you're constantly repeating conversations over and over again in your head.

(SOUNDBITE OF DRONING BUZZ SOUND)

POLINGER: And so it became clear that I was going to work with him and that we were going to build this kind of vocal-based score, and one that felt really big and really intense in a way that was a little bit unexpected for a film that could usually have a little bit more of a, like, nostalgic type of coming-of-age score.

ESTRIN: We only see one adult in the entire film, and that's the water polo coach, who's played by Joel Edgerton. What are you trying to say?

POLINGER: Again, with trying to immerse the audience in the point of view of these boys, it always kind of felt like there's always that moment when you're a young kid where you wonder if you should talk to an adult about something, but you know that there's a huge risk that that could kind of come back to bite you. And I remember being 12 or 13 and feeling like there were no grown-ups around. It had that kind of "Lord Of The Flies" feeling of, you know, when you're 12, it feels like you are starting to suddenly be independent. And even when there is supervision, it's so much less than there was when you were 9 or 10 years old.

ESTRIN: What did you learn writing and making this film about adolescence, about cruelty, about cruelty in the adult world, perhaps?

POLINGER: I think writing the film, I was just struck by how badly people want to belong in a group. And I think this is something that pertains to adolescents but I think it also pertains to the adult world, where people will do things that they know are bad just to feel like they're part of a group. And I guess writing the script, it just made me really question why that is such an innate human impulse to belong at all costs.

ESTRIN: Charlie Polinger wrote and directed the film "The Plague." It's in theaters now. Really a pleasure to speak with you.

POLINGER: You too.

(SOUNDBITE OF OLIVIER DERIVIERE'S "A PLAGUE TALE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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