Contagion

Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Ehle, Elliott Gould, John Hawkes

Dir. Steven Soderbergh
Scr. Scott Z Burns

It made me squirm in my undoubtedly germ-ridden cinema seat, wondering about the dozen people who had sat in it before me. It made me not want to touch anything on my way home, certainly not my own face. And it made me wash my hands at least three times the amount I usually do for the rest of the evening. And while this movie is certainly compelling and may well creep you out, at the end of the day you won’t care too much about who dies and how quickly. Soderbergh’s failing here is a lack of emotional connection.

Contagion follows the spread of a deadly and frightening virus – airborne and killing the infected within days. The medical community, notably the CDC and WHO, race to find the origins of the virus and a cure. It doesn’t take long for society to come apart at the seams as millions die.

I suspect Contagion might bore some, but I found it compelling and tense and tightly plotted. The issue I have, as I had with Soderbergh’s award-winning Traffic, is too many strands create a disconnect for the audience. And especially in this film, because we come to care about very few in this story. Sure, the cast is all-star and largely excellent. But we merely scan their lives. The exception – Matt Damon’s character, who loses his wife and stepson and turns neurotic in order to protect his remaining daughter – is a welcome relief and truly tugs at the heartstrings. His reaction to being told his wife has died is wonderful writing and acting.

As I say, the acting here is top-notch. Notably, Damon and Winslet shine, possibly because they are simply given more to work with. Jude Law, as a blogger and conspiracy theorist, has a ridiculous and random accent that I just couldn’t stand. I think he was supposed to be Australian? Whatever it was, it was awful. Cotillard is charming as ever but woefully underused.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this film. It’s smart and compelling and frightening. I guess I just wanted more – more emotion, more character development, more to truly make me care. Contagion is like a documentary with plenty of famous faces. It’s clinical, but maybe that’s the whole point?

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Dr Ian Sussman: Blogging is not writing. It’s just graffiti with punctuation.