Contagion Offers Hope in the Face of Horror

Director Steven Soderbergh has described “Contagion” as an Irwin Allen style disaster movie. For those not up on their B- movie history, producer-director Irwin Allen presided over some of the most celebrated disaster movies in history from “The Swarm,” to “The Towering Inferno” to “The Poseidon Adventure.”
Only horror movie mavens have produced as many dead bodies on the big screen. The Irwin Allen comparison is apt. Allen’s formula, a major catastrophe populated with a galaxy of well known stars, is essentially what “Contagion” attempts to be. The only difference is that Soderbergh’s level of skill prevents “Contagion” from drifting toward the kinds of caricature that Allen’s characters often became.
“Contagion,” at first, stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Beth, just another woman on a business trip in China. However, after a layover in Chicago, Beth has returned home to her husband, Mitch (Matt Damon,) and their son, and has fallen ill. It’s mere days before Beth is dead. Meanwhile, a video has spread across the internet of a man falling ill on a bus in China.
That man was with Beth in China and now both are dead. Soon, a man in Chicago has fallen ill. A woman in Kiev who had brief hand to hand contact with Beth in Hong Kong has died and her family is infected. Back in Minneapolis, Beth’s son has died and her husband is presumed ill while his daughter is returned from her mother’s and isolated.
At the CDC Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) and his team begin retrieving data and attempting to piece together the spread of the virus. In Hong Kong WHO Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) has a key piece of evidence from the security camera at the Hotel/Casino where Beth stayed. The video tracks the very start of the spread.
In Minneapolis Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet) attempts to organize the CDC response as the virus spreads like wildfire. Soon, however, because a hotel worker went to work while sick, Dr. Mears falls ill. Soderbergh’s “Contagion” has no respect for Awards or star-power as the Oscar winners seem to be the first to fall.
There is a calm and precision to “Contagio”n that is both comforting and limiting. Soderbergh has taken pains not to allow the film to cause massive panic attacks ( though I would urge hypochondriacs not to see Contagion) yet in doing so he contains “Contagion” into a box that prevents it from being as affective as it could no doubt be.
I don’t want “Contagion” to cause a panic ala Jaws depressing beach traffic in the summer of ’77 however, it’s fair to say that “Contagion” has the opportunity to be more fear inducing and thus a more viscerally satisfying than it is. As it is, “Contagio”n could almost be considered hopeful, in its way.
Many critics of “Contagion” have wondered about the character played by Jude Law. Law portrays a blogger who finds a chance to profit off of the spread of the virus by promoting a Government conspiracy and an herbal medicine that he claims is a cure. When there is a run on the herbal medicine, Law cashes in on the stock jump of the company that makes it.
The character however, is vague in purpose. At different moments he ranges from rambling street preacher to Alex Jones style maniac before eventually being taken seriously before yet another final and strangely vague twist. Jude Law’s performance is not up for question, he’s highly committed and engaging but the character never finds his footing.
“Contagion” is an artful pseudo-documentary in the hands of a master director. Steven Soderbergh’s command of this story takes what could have been sensational and exciting–in a terrifying B-Movie way–and makes it thoughtful, cautionary and occasionally moving. It’s nice to see a director who though he demonstrates the worst of humanity at times, allows the best of humanity to rise as well.
There is a surprising and unexpected hopefulness at the heart of “Contagion” that keeps it from tipping into something merely intended to terrify. The hope is needed at the end when the film flashes back to the start of its outbreak and reveals the modest and completely plausible series of events that began the outbreak. So simple and so horrifying.