Contagion is what happens when the wrong pig meets up with the wrong bat.
Sitting at a bar, you reach into the bowl of peanuts, a waiter picks up an empty glass, the school nurse takes a young boy’s temperature…all these and more seemingly innocent and every day occurrences are caught on camera and through the genius of editing, the lens lingers ever so slightly longer than normal. And there you have it; the path of a rapid, virulent, super bug virus as it swiftly travels along the road paved with human touch. We don’t realize how much of what we do, and what we touch affects other people until something like this heretofore undiscovered and unnamed virus begins its deadly trip around the world.
The movie moves forward while flashback snippets in the form of video surveillance camera footage step backward and show us just how Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow) became patient zero and set off an outbreak of MEV-1 and a pandemic nightmare. The portentous device of posting the day and date timeline on the screen brings the horror of how quickly a virus can multiply and spread exponentially, decimating the huge populations of such cities like, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and more.
Director Steven Soderberg brings his genius of fast-moving, everything-happening-at-once style he used so effectively in Traffic to this his latest work. There’s no grandstanding, no spiritual or religious overtones to wring out your emotions. No, this film plays it straight and factual. We are terrified, horrified and shaken, but not because we’ve been exposed to (no pun intended) to half-dead zombies stumbling across the screen. Instead, the camera pans through a deserted airport, sweeps over trash littered streets and lines of desperate citizens standing in line for government hand-outs of food.
The real heroes in this movie are intelligent government employees and level-headed scientists. Matt Damon gives a fine performance as the cuckolded husband of Beth, his best moment is at the hospital when he fails to comprehend the fact that his wife is dead. Kate Winslet delivers a solid performance as the field agent who gets sent out to Minnesota to head up government disaster containment.
By far in my opinion, Jude Law was the outstanding star in the movie. It was hard to believe that the scuzzy guy with the bad complexion and rotten teeth was really Jude Law. Playing a disgruntled left winged blogger, he incites the masses with his inflammatory, accusatory diatribes against the CDC and the pharmaceutical companies. Conspiracy theories are full blown!
This movie is certainly worth the price of admission. It’s a brilliantly directed film dealing with a terrifyingly grim subject, and one that the audience quickly realizes is all to close to reality. With SARS, H1N1, AIDS and ebola and ecoli outbreaks in our recent past, this movie resurrects the fear of contagion and births new concerns about biological warfare…and well it should.
SARS Virus
Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
Pbenjay's Blog 
Maybe next time you’ll say, “spoilers ahead.” I want to hear a review of a movie without finding out who’s cuckolded and who dies!
You’re right! I have put spoiler alerts on in the past – I forgot completely maybe it was too late. Don’t read the Hysterical – Historical
BTW, in the first 3 minutes you know who dies and who’s cuckolded.