Contagion

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	2011
Country of origin:	USA / UAE
Director:	Steven Soderbergh
Genre:	Paranoid disease thriller
Starring:	Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598778/
Tagline:	The world goes viral September 9
Favourite line:	"Blogging is not writing. It's just graffiti with punctuation."

Ever worried about the number of times you touch your face each day?
No?
You might after this.

The plot:
A previously unknown virus manifests, clustering in various spots around the world: Hong Kong, London, Chicago, with no apparent link.
A team of scientists, foremost amongst them Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) are tasked with determining the cause and, crucially, the potential ramifications of a true epidemic.
Slowly, as science loses the battle against a microscopic foe, the question becomes not how many will die, but how many will survive?
Countering the official position, some decide that the world governments are in collusion and that a cure already exists, and spread the word via the Internet, online bloggers with a voice far louder than that any minister could ever hope to garner.
So who will win?
The authorities?
The bloggers?
Or the disease?

Played for real, this is intelligent stuff that taps into primal fears, specifically those of a parent: it's a dreadful, corrupting force that has but one purpose - to destroy that which you love.
The cast, though A-list - Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne et al - are treated just like regular folk so that at no point does anyone feel 'safe.' Indeed, the movie begins with nought but tragedy bestowed upon one of our usual heroes, as first Damon's wife, then his son succumb to the illness and, given that his wife is none other than Gwyneth Paltrow, from that point on bets are off as to who will survive to the end. When a movie is ballsy enough to kill off an A-lister in the first five minutes, who fucking knows what they will do next?
The realism adds an edge to things but, truthfully, by the end, it is also something of a flaw as, in order to instill the hyper-realism, Soderbergh resists the urge to blow his load at any point. Noble, but it means at times the movie lacks too much of a punch.
All that being said, the theatre was pretty packed when I watched this and, perhaps it was all in my mind, but there did seem to be a palpable sense of horror as our own physical vulnerabilities were laid bare, which is no bad thing.
One last thing: this is a zombie movie, really, and anyone that thinks otherwise deserves a vicious beating around the scalp.
Liked this.