Contagion

Contagion’

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

With Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Marion Cttillard,

Kate Winslet, Jennifer Ehle and Elliot Gould

The terror resulting from seeing the brilliant and gripping Steven Soderburgh film, “Contagion,” comes not from terrorists; but from a virus. The content of this unnerving story about a worldwide pandemic was carefully researched and fact checked by epidemiologists. It is very, very real.

“Contagion” unfolds in countdown style beginning on “Day 2” of the epidemic. A businesswoman, Beth Emhoff (Gwenth Paltrow), is returning from Hong Kong and is on a layover in Chicago en route to her family in Minneapolis. She coughs. She has just been on a long flight from Hong Kong. She uses her credit card, she nibbles from a bowl of peanuts, she touches door handles, her face, stair rails, napkins. In the meantime, a waiter in Hong Kong sneezes all over the people and the food he is serving and returns to his teeming apartment complex. A Tokyo businessman home from a meeting in Hong Kong collapses on a very crowded train. And so it begins.

The film jumps all over the world showing everything happening at once. Places and dates and numbers of those infected are shown. The virus has spread lickity-split.

The Center for Disease Control headed by Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) is mobilized into action to try to track and fight the spread of the disease. Dr. Orantes (Marion Cotillard) is in Geneva mobilizing the forces of the World Health Organization. Erin Meers (Kate Winslet), a scrupulous medical intelligence specialist, goes to Minneapolis to convert huge sports stadiums into makeshift hospitals. Soon there will be no medical personnel left to treat the sick and dying.

Charts show how far the virus has spread, how many thousands, then millions, have died. Clearly the Internet and the media play crucial roles in information and misinformation. A self-serving blogger, Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law), posts incorrect information on the Web, also stating he has found a homeopathic cure called Forsythia. He meets with hedge fund guys who back the pseudo cure. Panicked people line up at pharmacies, there are riots, supermarkets are looted, whole cities are quarantined. The social fabric has been disrupted and a sense of helplessness prevails. There is a frantic race to develop a vaccine.

“Contagion” is full of human touches. Beth Emhoff’s husband, Mitch (Matt Damon), frantically tries to protect his family from the virus. Amidst all the chaos, Dr Cheever is desperately trying to convince his wife to go to a safe area.

Director Soderburgh could have ratcheted up the horror by showing the agonies of death, bodies putrifying and the like. But he tells the story straight. The human dimension is explored by introducing specific people and their personal  involvement with the epidemic. Mentions are made of AIDS, SARS, SWINE FLU, H1N1, the Ebola Virus, the Spanish Flu of 1918. It is all very real. And you don’t find out the source of the virus until the very last moments of the film. We really should be scared.