DRAMA; 1hr 38min
STARRING: Joel Edgerton, Everett Blunck, Kayo Martin, Kenny Rasmussen
Sink or swim: Blunck
It’s kill or be killed at the Tom Lerner Water Polo Camp in the summer of 2003, when peer pressure escalates to sustained psychological torment. Blending in with odious camp kingpin Jake (Martin) and his bully-boy squad is a stressor from the start for sensitive observer Ben (Blunck), but the bullies’ brutal treatment of outlier Eli (Rasmussen) is the proving ground of a bridge too far.
Eli, who is self-protectively eccentric and seems resigned to his social ostracism, has a skin infection that Jake and Co have sneeringly conflated into a plague that eats away at body and mind. At 12 and 13, they have already perfected the dark adult art of a distilled cruelty in which Ben declines to participate. And when the gang becomes aware of Ben applying antiseptic cream to Eli’s rashy back, Ben’s concern lands him squarely in the deep end. Now Ben has the rash, as well, which can only be a ticket to disaster — and, of course, the well-meaning man in charge (the ever-intriguing Edgerton as Daddy Wags) is an adult world away.
Every frame of this horrible story, the feature-film debut of writer-director Charlie Polinger, is a darkly beautiful immersion, composed with the gravitas of an epic poem. As anyone who has been victimised could attest, meanness is epic in the reach of its vengeful intent, the impact of which Ben is forced to reckon with when the sadistic kids really get going. Blunck, Martin and Rasmussen are unnervingly great from woe to worse: the horrifying climactic scene between Ben and Eli, and the furious rush of liberation that closes the show, could never have come together if their every beat and breath weren’t authentic.
