Movie Review - Contagion

Contagion (2011)

Starring Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle, John Hawkes, Sanaa Lathan, and Elliot Gould

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Contagion is a modern-day version of those 70s "classics" like Earthquake and The Towering Inferno.  Let's put a bunch of well-known actors into a plot, throw in a natural disaster, and see who makes it out alive.  Unlike those special effects-laden films of a few decades ago, however, Contagion is actually good.  

Really good.  

And genuinely frightening.  I do think that, in the end, Steven Soderbergh's thriller about a new strain of deadly virus wreaking havoc on the world hopes that it feels "important."  And while it certainly paints a rather grim picture of what would happen should such an incident occur, I can't help but think it seems more "fluffy" than "substantial," but that's certainly not a bad thing in this case because it still succeeds at nearly every level.

The film opens on a black screen with the sound of someone coughing.  And already the mood is ominous.  We discover (thanks to a subtitle on the screen) that we are in Day 2 of this new viral outbreak and we see the young and vibrant Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) sitting at an airport bar talking on the phone with a man whom she just slept with.  All seems fine...except then we realize that Beth is the person whom we heard coughing mere seconds ago.  And Soderbergh makes it very clear via his directorial choices that Beth is passing this thing along to others -- the close up of the bowl of peanuts that she just ate from, the handing of a credit card to the bartender.  We're in for trouble and Soderbergh isn't hiding that from us.  The very fact that he makes these incredibly mundane things manage to appear so scary is a credit to him.

From there, the film branches off into various storylines -- some following "normal" citizens like Beth and her husband (Matt Damon), with others focusing on members of the Centers for Disease Control and their attempts to discover the origins of the virus (which is where folks like Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, and Marion Cotillard come into play).  Never staying with any of these plotlines for extended periods of time allows the viewer to never tire of any of them and always keep them longing for more.  Much like the disaster flicks of the 70s, no one is safe here.  Big stars (all of whom perform very well here) are going to bite the dust and this certainly increases the nerves that the viewer feels.

Admittedly, the film is bogged down with the character of Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law), a blogger who says that he will show the public the truth behind the secrets that the government and the CDC are hiding.  Anytime the plot veered into his territory, I kept wanting it to head to someone else.  His conspiracy theories just didn't seem well developed and, quite frankly, bored me (as most ludicrous conspiracy theories do).  Fortunately, as stated, the film doesn't stay on any one character for long and we find the plot quickly shifting to others.

Still, despite that one fault, I couldn't help but find myself absolutely enthralled by Contagion.  On the edge of my seat thanks to Soderbergh's creative direction, this is a completely believable real-life horror story the likes of which I hope we never see actually happen even though it positively could.  Time to grab that hand sanitizer...

The RyMickey Rating:  A-