Contagion [Review by Haus]

Contagion is a fantastic film. Steven Soderbergh shows admirable restraint in a genre that invites hyperbole — the product is cool, smart, and plausible.

Gwenyth Paltrow plays patient zero for a highly contagious and lethal virus. The outbreak originates in Hong Kong and follows her home to Minnesota, where she promptly infects her child and dies. Hubby Matt Damon is mysteriously immune. Other characters are Laurence Fishburne as a CDC chief, Jennifer Ehle as a CDC research scientist, Kate Winslet as a field agent, Marion Cotillard as a WHO official, and Jude Law as a wild conspiracy-theorist fame-hungry blogger. The story arc is fairly simple and traces the outbreak through the epidemic and pandemic stages. (Quick definition? Epidemic is more than normal; pandemic is worldwide.) Against this backdrop are set these characters’ various personal tales, including semi-frequent flashbacks from Gwen’s final days.

The film is great for a number of reasons. First, it’s actually realistic. Humanity has weathered devastating epidemics before — the Black Death, the 1918 Spanish flu, and so on — and the most notable thing about them (for me, at least) is, on balance, how few people actually died. The Black Death killed about a third of Europe. And not to seem callous, but as a child reading tales of these horrors, I thought it killed more like… everyone. It’s easy to exaggerate when one out of three people is dropping dead, and outbreak fiction often reflects this same over-the-top approach. (Consider Stephen King’s The Stand, or 28 Days Later.) Not Contagion. This film pegs mortality for its fictional MEV-1 virus at a very plausible (though still devastating) 20%. Not 100%; 20%.

Of course, 20% is more than enough to wreak chaos in society, and that’s precisely what happens here. But rather than throw in the towel and go whole-hog post-apocalyptic (28 Days Later style), Contagion again treads the path of reason. This is a thoughtful portrayal and, I think, an accurate one. Brutal though they may be, life does go on after epidemics.

The characters’ stories overlaid here are varied, poignant, and true. It’s all well acted and authentic. I won’t harp much on these stories, you can enjoy them for yourself — but there are no heroes, no one is perfect. These are real people dealing with a very real problem in very real ways.

Contagion doesn’t play fast and loose with its science, either. The biology passes the sniff test (an admitted rarity in this genre) and the scientists aren’t running around like Indiana Jones or making Einstein-style breakthroughs while swinging through windows. Ehle is a calm, camera-shy workaholic whose discovery is made through systematic experimentation (just like real life!), and there is some very interesting commentary here on the industry/academia/government split in research science and public health. Some of it is carried in Jude Law’s antigovernment rants, but a fair slice plays out more subtly in the interplay between labs. (An aside: If you want to see how real scientists think, talk, and approach problems, watch the terrific sci fi film Sunshine.)

I also particularly enjoyed the way in which Contagion addressed very real logistical problems in drug development and distribution. This stuff seems too boring for Hollywood, but these are precisely the real-world problems that preoccupy these agencies. It’s all very thought provoking. It’s a thinking person’s disaster film.

A pleasant surprise (that I won’t give away) was the ending montage. Unnecessary, yes, but so very, deeply satisfying. Like a quick reminder, you know, here’s why you came to the movies — because we can do this.

Anyway, this is a great movie. When the next big epidemic comes, it may well go down a lot like this. And for an outbreak film, from this reviewer, there is simply no higher praise.

HAUS VERDICT: A fantastic picture. Restrained, honest, realistic, and engaging.