Movie Review | Contagion

Contagion, the new film directed by Steven Soderburg and featuring an ensemble cast, tracks the fictional outbreak of a deadly strain of flu throughout the world.

The film explores the outbreak from multiple points of view — those of a Centers for Disease Control official, a regular husband and father, a blogger, a World Health Organization doctor and others. Society slowly begins to break down as the modern world faces a pandemic the scale of which it has not seen before.

The film essentially plays out as an upscale horror film — we know the what's coming long before the characters do, and the monster in this case seems to pop up everywhere.

We are given long, lingering shots of everything the ailing characters touch as the film tries to do to public surfaces what Jaws did to the ocean. One speech, delivered by Kate Winslet, will have you self-consciously counting the number of times you touch your face throughout the day. This movie will be a boon to the surgical-mask and hand-sanitizer industries.

There are two problems these type of ensemble, multi-storyline movies often face. The first is the inevitability that some plot threads will be substantially weaker than the others (looking your way, Jude Law scenes). Contagion's weaker segments are brief, but still grate.

The other, and far more pernicious, is the problem of emotional connection and character development. When a movie jumps around between stories, it runs the risk of not allowing the audience to identify with any one character. Matt Damon (as the regular civilian) is supposed to be the emotional core of the film, but I walked out of the theater and forgot his character's name within five minutes.

Because we only spend a short period of time with each character, they're too often poorly defined. The doctors and scientists (Laurence Fishburne et al) are earnest, the father is protective of his daughter, the blogger's not a good guy — they're all notably flat, and very little time is devoted to character development.

In short, the film sometimes seems more like a slideshow than a story — "How I spent my pandemic."

The movie's strength, though, is its true-to-life feel — it's chillingly plausible. It makes one note how tenuous civilization can be at times, and how desperate those in trouble can be.

If you can stand the grim, clinical tone of the thing, you'll find some entertainment here.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go wash my hands again.

Grade: B+

Contagion is rated PG-13.