Contagion

Watching Contagion is a clinical experience. It reminded me of The Andromeda Strain or those disaster movies of the seventies that were jammed packed with Hollywood stars. The movie follows the course of a disease while health workers and scientists try to determine how the virus spreads, how it kills and where it came from. By tracing the virus back to its origin and how it transmits, the outbreak can be contained and eventually eradicated.

I’m not sure it was a good idea casting Laurence Fishburne in this film. As soon as I saw him in a white lab coat he reminded me of CSI and completely took me out of the film. Add to that all the shots of offices, clipboards, labs and slide presentations I felt like I had signed up for science class. I thought it was interesting for the camera to focus on all the ways that humans pass germs and make contact throughout the day, but after a while it slowed things down and as a result the movie lost some of its momentum.

I am a huge fan of the 1971 movie The Andromeda Strain.  I loved how the film focused on two patients and the handful of scientists who worked around the clock to solve the mystery of why these two people were still alive. In contrast, Contagion goes global. The backdrop is international with so many people participating that it is hard to get attached to any of them. You’d think that Matt Damon would play a larger role but as soon as he has his big encounter at the hospital he is sent home to remain in isolation with his daughter. Kate Winslet comes in and out of the movie as an investigator and then is left lying on a cot, and Marion Cotillard gets kidnapped and doesn’t reappear again until the end of the film. This story is so busy with so many players it is difficult to feel empathy for any of them.

In another unusual turn for this movie, Gwyneth Paltrow begins the film by dying. No need for a spoiler alert because anyone who has seen the previews or the movie poster knows she is going to die. The rest of the film follows her in photos and video surveillance. Luckily for us she contracted the disease in a casino with lots of cameras. Otherwise we’d be left with people talking about where she had been and that would be very boring.

Today more people are afraid of disease and germs than ever before. Companies fuel our fears by alarmist ads and articles and then turn around and sell us hand sanitizer, face masks and air purifiers. In this film Jude Law represents the opportunists of society. Unfortunately there are too many like him in real life. But the scariest part of this film is that when it comes to disease and biowarfare is hard to fight an enemy you can’t see and even harder to get people to take the right precautions. I remember how freaked out I was in college while taking a zoology course. After discovering all the animals that feed on our dead skin cells and actually live on our bodies I’ll never be the same again.

We are a big complicated inter-connected world and there are billions of organisms that share our planet. Plagues are scary, outbreaks are tragic, but it is also comforting to know that there are men and women who think viruses are cool and will continue to isolate and study them. They are our only defense in this microscopic world. Let’s hope that this film will excite some budding scientists. Our last frontier is under the microscope.

Rating: Bargain Matinee This film was a clinical experience