A girl is struck down by polio during the terrifying epidemic of the early 1950s. Paralyzed and unable to breathe on her own, she is committed to the hospital in Copenhagen and placed in an iron lung. Forty years earlier, a child grows up in an orphanage for boys outside of Budapest. The child goes by the name of 'Boy' but is not like the others, as their body seems to transcend the categories of boy or girl. Between these two young people, there is a powerful, enigmatic bond that stretches across time and space. Iron Lung is a poetic allegory of adolescence, and an unsettling and subtle commentary on sexuality, medicine, and technology.