Contagion (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + UltraViolet Digital Copy)

Last Updated on Thursday, 03 May 2012 13:52

Written by Jonathan Jacobs

Contagion is the most complete pandemic film of all time. Health Care professionals from all medical sectors will fawn over it. This film is a stark and imaginative portrayal of what would happen in the instance of a deadly contemporary pandemic (an epidemic is regional while a pandemic is global). Unfortunately, as with all Steven Soderbergh films, the acting is as boring as can be and features his friends as the stars. Contagion has the feel of an episode of "House", except I enjoy watching Hugh Laurie solve seemingly unsolvable medical mysteries.

In Contagion an epidemic becomes a pandemic and ultimately audiences discover how viral transmission occurs on a planet wide scale. To his credit, Soderbergh receives high marks for his deftness in alerting viewers to the serious reality of viral communication. The virus in this film is a more potent and mutative version of SARS or the H1N1 "Bird Flu". I have written articles about the bird flu and published one very popular article about the 1918 killer flu pandemic, familiarly known as the Spanish Influenza. From this new virus' origin to its ostensible stoppage, the world descends into a maelstrom of chaos.

One woman traveling from Hong Kong to Chicago infects fellow gamblers, airplane passengers, and so on and so forth. Those in contact with Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) contract the virus. Those victims travel on buses, planes, in cars, shake hands, touch door knobs, sneeze and cough into the open air, and transmit the virus to countless millions. These are simple and basic methods of conduction that are often overlooked during flu season. This new mutation kills within 3-5 days ending in fatal asphyxiation and seizures. It is eerily similar to the Spanish flu (named for its origination in Spain). When SARS and H1N1 erupted, livestock were slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands to prevent animal to human transmission. In Contagion, people are quarantined as best as authorities can manage. Beth cheated on her husband Mitch Emhoff (Matt Damon) prior to arriving home. Consequently, her lover became a carrier and the virus began spiraling out of control.

Mitch's son dies days after his wife perishes for no apparent reason. Her doctors are nonplussed. That leaves him with only one surviving family member, his daughter Jory (Anna Jacoby-Heron). Mitch is naturally immunized by some bittersweet twist of fate. He protects his daughter through some harrowing episodes of public rape, murder, pilfering and pillaging. Food is no longer in surplus as the quarantines take effect. It is a kill or be kill world.

By the time the CDC and the WHO (Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization) intervene, the virus has already spread across the world. Major cities such as Dallas, Chicago, Boston, New York, and Hong Kong are hit the heaviest with initial casualties, but it infiltrates the most populous Asian, European and American cities.

The CDC task force is heavily focused on. Dr. Ellis Cheever (Lawrence Fishburn), Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet), and Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) are at the forefront of disease prevention. Dr. Cheever manipulates the public while protecting his lover, Dr. Mears sets up stadium wide CDC trauma centers for the infected, and Dr. Hextall works on a vaccine. A vaccine is not a cure, it merely prevents the spread of a virus provided there is no further mutation. Those already infected will die at a high but unspecified mortality rate.

The most intriguing character is Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law). Alan runs a website allegedly devoted to spreading and revealing the truth that governments hide from their citizens. His list of "unique hits" or website followers reaches more than 12 million people. Alan argues that the CDC and the WHO are not releasing the vaccine quickly enough because their friends at pharmaceutical companies are benefitting from exclusive contracts made infinitely more lucrative based on the public's levels of panic and fear. What he never mentions to his followers, is that he sells information, market predictions and dabbles in stock investments based on his inside knowledge of the virus' medical outcomes. It is quite a tightrope he walks between being a public messiah and a dastardly profiteer.

Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) is kidnapped by a group of Chinese villagers desperate to prevent the further vanquishing of their people. She becomes a local teacher and is tasked with bringing vaccines to the village's remaining children. Unfortunately she is manipulated both by her medical associates and by the villagers. She lives in the middle of competing interests, money and survival.

Frankly, the actors bore me to tears. I cannot fathom why the usual suspects seem to always appear in "impactful" movies destined to win Academy Awards. Kate Winslet, Matt Damon, Lawrence Fishburn, Gwyneth Paltrow and Marion Cotillard have grown stale and they are devoid of the ability to portray emotionality to a forceful degree. It is a veritable list of who's who. They may win awards but they caused a brilliant script to seem like a made for television movie, only with one of the most expensive casts ever.

Contagion is brilliant in that it covers everything (as a twenty-four hour news-cycle observer) I can think of pertaining to infectious diseases and contagion (pardon the redundancy). The depiction of the spread of the killer virus is as accurate as any I have seen or read about. The virus itself, an offshoot or ugly cousin of H1N1, makes sense on a biological level. Nothing is far-fetched, in fact it is all too real. From 1917-1919 the killer influenza pandemic killed an estimated 25-70 million people (calculations vary depending on the tabulation of data from worldwide health centers). It is not inconceivable that a similar infection could spread due to modern air travel, through the subway, in taxi cabs, at grocery stores, at local clinics, and the list continues ad infinitum. Given that the human population is teetering on the brink of seven billion, the number of casualties would likely augment exponentially. While the acting is unfortunately absurdly self-absorbed, the storylines, including the liberal-centric supposed evils of capitalism amid the horror of death, are nothing short of brilliant. The storyline earns an A, while the actors receive a C, and only because I love Jude Law.

- Includes Instant Streaming with UltraViolet Digital Copy
- Contagion: How A Virus Changes The World
- The Reality of Contagion
- The Contagion Detectives