Contagion (***½)
Directed
by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring:
Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion
Cotillard, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jeniffer
Ehle, Elliot Gould, Chin Han
Seen:
October 22nd 2011
***½
Out of ****
Contagion comes with a very big and impressive cast with very little
focus on any single character, as that’s not what Contagion is about. It is
about a lethal virus, MEV-1, which spreads through indirect surface contact,
killing the host within a few days. From the opening frames of the movie
stating that this is Day 2 (and the movie progresses through the days as the
virus spreads), there is an underlying fear that grows and grabs at the viewer’s
sensibilities, a strange awareness of a doorknob, an elevator button, even a
credit card; because it’s been touched. The virus is the main character here,
and it is shown to display no favouritism, no discrimination; it simply kills.
Beth Emhoff (Paltrow) returns from a Hong Kong business trip where she
contracted the virus, and stops over in Chicago before heading home to her
husband Mitch (Damon) in Minneapolis. Beth dies shortly thereafter, rather
quickly followed by her son Clark, but Mitch is immune, and when his daughter
comes to support him he locks her away from any possible exposure. The World
Health Organisation sends Dr. Leonora Orantes (Cotillard) to Hong Kong for
local investigations where she determines Beth Emhoff was patient zero, but she’s
taken hostage by epidemiologist Sun Feng (Han), intending to use her to obtain help
for his small hometown, with only a few survivors.
The CDC, desperate to figure out the virus and create a vaccine under
Dr Ellis Cheever (Fishburne) and his most trusted scientist Dr. Ally Hextall
(Ehle), work around the clock for resolution, while in the field Dr. Erin Mears
(Winslet) does her best to track the virus’ spread in an attempt to find
patient zero. A doctor from a small independent laboratory, Professor Ian
Sussman (Gould), countermands CDC orders to destroy all samples and makes a
breakthrough, but the clock is still ticking. The job of the CDC is further
hampered by journalistic blogger Alan Krumwiede (Law), perpetuating claims that
the government and the pharmaceutical companies are in it to make money, and
are hiding possible cures from the populace.
All this takes the backseat to the virus’ growth and the fear accompanying
it, and as the movie progresses the viewer sees an increasingly sterile world
where emotion takes a backseat to the primal and singular urge for survival, by
any means. Crowds display horrendous selfishness where food and medication is
distributed and no help is offered where infection is possible. The virus runs
this movie very well, Steven Soderbergh definitely knows how to put together a
fantastic movie, as the camera work shifts slightly throughout the movie; consequences
and revelations are displayed in interesting ways through great cinematography.
The music drives the movie with an almost documentary feel at times and a more
distinctly tense feel at others, when there isn’t necessarily much tension
other than the chilling encroaching of the virus. One moment of emotion near
the end of the movie comes so starkly contrasted to the rest of the movie that
you almost miss it, but then realise: this is a lone moment of feeling in an
otherwise bleak portrayal of mass death.
Contagion is a great movie, and while not everyone watching it with me
found it as entertaining as I did, all of them acknowledged the sense of dread
and the somewhat paranoid feeling the movie leaves you with. For a while, at
least, you will think when touching something.
Comments