To start off this review, I'd like to ask you all to remember the H1N1 scare that occurred a few years back. I was a senior in high school, so I was fully aware of the public reaction happening as the events unfolded. A local school here in my hometown of Oxnard was shut down because of a suspected case. Everyone went bonkers. People were practicing good habits, finally, only after a scare had happened. Never have I seen so much hand sanitizer being used or hands being washed so thoroughly in bathrooms. However, in my mind, I couldn't help but think, was this it? Was this finally the big pandemic that had been so narrowly avoided in the cases of Avian flu and SARS? "Contagion" explores the possibility of what can happen if such a pandemic were to occur.
The picture is a combination of multiple stories, beginning on Day 2 of the viral outbreak, Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) arrives home from a business trip, terribly ill, and getting worse. Across the world in China, where she had just arrived from, two others seem to be suffering from the same symptoms. When Beth mysteriously dies, her husband, Mitch, (Matt Damon) is left wondering what happened to her. Suddenly, the symptoms begin to spread, person to person. All over the town, then soon, all over the country. Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) is heading the investigation at the Center for Disease Control to attempt to pin down and identify this bizarre new illness. Across the country in San Francisco, blogger Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) is tracking the spread of this mysterious illness on the internet and preaching that this is a way for the pharmaceutical industry to make a buck. Soon, Cheever calls in Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet), a pandemic specialist to determine the size and scale of what could potentially happen once a projection of how the virus can potentially spread is calculated. Scientists at the CDC Dr. Ally Hextal (Jennifer Ehle) and Dr. David Eisenberg (Dimitri Martin) work around the clock to attempt to isolate a strain of the virus to find a cure. They work as fast as possible, but not before the unidentifiable virus becomes a global pandemic, shutting down the world, and plummeting the world into chaos.
Society collapses in Steven Soderbergh's chilling film "Contagion"
One of the coolest thing about "Contagion" is also its downfall, at least to me it was. The film is directed by the extremely versatile director Steven Soderbergh, who has directed some of the most acclaimed films of recent memory. Naturally, a lot of big actors want to work with such a talent, so this film is cast with big actors in supporting roles. Kate Winslet's Dr. Mears is very much a supporting role and not a lead, where as Matt Damon has a starring role and so does Laurence Fishburne as Cheever.
On the other hand, this doesn't mean that the script is weak, because it's the farthest thing from that. I was just a little put off to see big stars in supporting roles, because it took me completely out of the film to see so many names in one film. And because the actors are so good and well respect, for me at least, there was often times an instantaneous sympathy for them. I was keeping my fingers crossed the entire time that nothing bad would come of Dr. Mears or Cheever.
Kate Winslet as Dr. Erin Mears
I don't know how accurate the science of this film is, but I didn't question it at all. I was sold from the moment that research began on what this mysterious strain of illness was. That also is the most frightening aspect of this film. It feels real, like something that we could actually witness in our lifetime. Shortages of food, military enforcement of major cities and borders, the shutdown of the global economy, and of course, the collapse of society are more frightening than anything else we find in scary movies. "Contagion" is not, strictly speaking, a horror film - but it is extremely frightening. Characters that we grow sympathetic for are killed without mercy and no one is safe.
However, the film's sense of urgency is lost in it's own story. Because of the nature of the virus, a vaccine can't be synthesized easily or quickly. So the amount of death continues without end and the race to find a vaccine isn't much of a race because there is no way to know when it will be found or how it will be made and mass produced. The entire film made me nervous and sparked my curiosity as to which scenarios that happened in the picture would play out in reality if this were to ever happen. One of the more frightening scenes comes deep in the second act when people at a pharmacy begin a riot to attempt to to a synthesized remedy made from forsythia.
The cast is excellent, really making it the highlight of the film. This many big names in one film can do wonders for it as it does in "Contagion." I've watched many horror, suspense, and thriller films, but I can easily say that this is the most terrifying movie I've ever seen. It feels like a documentary as to what can happen should a pandemic spread as it does in the movie. Though the cast took me out quite a bit at the beginning from the picture's story, the realism of Soderbergh's direction made for a truly terrifying 106 minutes. Remember to wash your hands, stay home if you're sick, and most importantly of all, wash your hands. I know already said that, but I can't stress enough how important that is.
8/10
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Written by Scott Z. Burns
Runtime - 106 minutes
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