How would the world react to a deadly, untreatable virus outbreak?  How would it not only affect me and you, but how would it play out on the political, medical and societal stage?  How would the world deal with such chaos?   It’s an interesting, valid posit and film is a great place to explore such hypothetical, yet frighteningly realistic situations.  However, film has certain limits and trying to address every single problem arising from such an epidemic would be extremely difficult to do with any kind of efficiency.  And that’s the most noticeable flaw in Contagion(2011, Steven Soderbergh); way too much to cover, not nearly enough time.

Beth Emhoff(played by Gwyneth Paltrow) comes home to the Midwest from a business trip to Hong Kong, with a touch of the flu which she blames on jet lag.  Shortly after getting home, she collapses to the kitchen floor in seizures and within minutes of getting to the hospital is declared dead.  While the doctors are trying to figure out what Beth died from, and her husband Mitch(Matt Damon) struggles to wrap his brain around the sudden loss of his wife, their young son Clark is at home suffering the same flu-like symptoms as his mother.  As more and more people get sick and subsequently die from the same virus in Minneapolis, Chicago, Hong Kong and elsewhere around the world, the scientific world and the frenzied, panicking public fight to figure out more about what’s killing those around them…and how to cure it.

Director Steven Soderbergh(dir. of  the Ocean’s Eleven franchise, Traffic and Sex, Lies and Videotape) typically seems to focus on being a more visceral director.  Most of his films are well put together and nice looking, but don’t offer much of any emotional connection to plot points or his characters and that’s pretty much what happened here with Contagion.  We’re introduced to such a wide assortment of characters right from the start; married couple Beth and Mitch; Dr. Cheever(Laurence Fishburne) who is head of the CDC; the janitor at the CDC Roger(John Hawkes from Winter’s Bone); Cheever’s personally picked epidemic assistant Erin Mears(Kate Winslet); insanely irritating beat/blog writer Alan(Jude Law); international relations scientist Dr. Orantes(Marion Cotillard from Inception)…and that’s just to name a few of the main players in this rather epic scaled tale.  Soderbergh did a great job of introducing us to these characters and setting up a stunning yet grim universe, as his camera choice offers the dull, fitting, tawny type tone to the atmosphere which fits the virtually apocalyptic backdrop.

However, while the setup was great, the cast stellar and the aesthetics exceptional, beneath all that sheen was a story with a scope just too vast to overcome.  Just when you begin to grow an attachment to one character, the narrative sweeps you away to another and what we’re left with is a bunch of loose ends that, frankly, never get tied.  Soderbergh makes a very feeble attempt at instilling compassion into one of the storylines towards the end, but even that has an ambiguity to it that leaves us with a general indifference to everything we just witnessed.  The ensemble cast does an adequate job, but a few of the characters leave a lot to be desired.  The character of Alan, for instance, is far and away the most irritating character from the entire year of film and while a kudos may be in order to Jude Law for getting under my skin as much as his character did, it’s a gaping sore spot for the film as a whole.  We meet all these characters and there’s no clear reason to root for or against any of them, and the only thing we’re sure to root against is the virus itself.  Just another emotionally disconnected film from an otherwise talented director.

There’s plenty of doomsday type films around these days whether it be epidemic/outbreak, zombie or Armageddon based.  Typically when these types of movies do well, there’s some sort of a rooting interest embedded in the narration.  Well, not here.  This film does a great job of giving us a believable and good-looking world, but unfortunately it’s a world we just don’t care about.  Watching Contagion is akin to watching a documentary.  If you’re looking for a well rounded apocalyptic movie, I suggest looking elsewhere.

RATING: 5/10

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  Contagion (2011) Trailer

  “Contagion” follows the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that kills within days. As...

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