Directed by:
Steven SoderberghScreenplay:
Scott Z. BurnsCinematography:
Steven SoderberghComposer:
Cliff MartinezCast:
Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Elliott Gould, Bryan Cranston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tien-you Chui, Josie Ho Chiu-yee (more)VOD (1)
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When Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns to Minneapolis from business in Hong Kong, what she thought was jet lag takes a virulent turn. Two days later, she's dead in the ER and the doctors tell her shocked and grieving husband they have no idea why. Soon more cases are reported as the virus begins to spread. Researchers mobilize to break the code of this unique biological pathogen as it continues to mutate. Deputy Director Cheever tries to allay the growing panic despite his own personal concerns, and must send a brave young doctor into harm's way. As the death toll escalates and people struggle to protect themselves and their loved ones in a society breaking down, one activist blogger claims the public isn't getting the truth about what's really going on, and sets off an epidemic of paranoia and fear as infectious as the virus itself. (Reel Entertainment)
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Reviews (16)
Watching this with flu is only for the hard-nosed. The main protagonist is the contagion itself, that’s what it’s all about. An entirely new kind of movie, an emotionally sterile (and all the more impressive because of it) documentary about future things, which creates, through it’s infectious atmosphere, the insistent feeling of “so this is how it’s going to be, this is what’s gonna happen..." Of course, when it breaks out, it will be without Martinez’s perfect soundtrack. Which will be a crying shame.
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Soderbergh doesn’t give a shit about the audience. Zero emotions, little tension, full of stars but without any of them shining too much on screen. Contagion is simply an unbiased and detached look at a global pandemic, and it’s actually that austerity and inhumanity what brings to the surface the horror and hopelessness of the situation. It probably only needed to dig a bit deeper into the issue, the last half hour felt too short. 7/10
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It has too little escalation to pass for a thriller, too little space for character development to pass for a drama, and too much casual presentation of empty "facts" to pass for a quasi-documentary. The half-heartedness exuded by every other scene is at times unbearable, regularly making a hard-luck child out of Stephen Soderbergh. As nothing more than a popcorn movie filled with tension, Contagion could have landed with much greater impact, but as it is, the creative intentions here completely missed the mark.
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Contagion is high-quality filmmaking craftsmanship in the typical Steven Soderbergh fashion, with the intelligent idea of a global catastrophe and how to deal with it, topped off with attractive characters. Rather than “ordinary people”, the film focuses on characters who are in a position to deal with this problem directly and who, through their vulnerability, are also shown as ordinary human beings. The “chemical” atmosphere is emphasized by progressive electronic music without a single emotion. There could be more powerful moments and the best parts should not have happened at the beginning. The explanatory ending is sloppy. Overall, Contagion is a decent alternative to disaster movies as we know them from Emmerich and such :-)
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A sterile clinical procedure that goes against the greatest genre conventions and its brilliantly organized yet pedantic narrative proves that Soderbergh is equal to Fincher in this regard. Unfortunately, there are a few pointless scenes and schemes, but with some passages of resolution and distrust, Contagion is close to its maximum. It shows better than any other disaster film that fear is the worst contagion.
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