Contagion Blu-Ray Review

Rated PG-13 (Disturbing Content and some Language)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 46 Minutes

Cast-

Matt Damon-Mitch Emhoff

Gwyneth Paltrow-Elizabeth ‘Beth’ Emhoff

Laurence Fishburne-Dr. Ellis Cheever

Kate Winslet-Dr. Erin Mears

Marion Cotillard-Dr. Leonora Orantes

Jude Law-Alan Krumwiede

Jennifer Ehle-Dr. Ally Hextall

Elliott Gould-Dr. Ian Sussman

Chin Han-Sun Feng

Bryan Cranston- RADM Lyle Haggerty, PHSCC

John Hawkes-Roger

Sanaa Lathan-Aubrey Cheever

Anna Jacoby-Heron-Jory Emhoff

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Matt Damon's Mitch Emhoff finds himself in the midst of a global pandemic in Steven Soderbergh's "Contagion."

Nobody likes getting sick but it happens despite the best of our efforts. I began 2012 on a sour note when I woke up on New Year’s Eve with a sore throat and runny nose but a quick visit to the doctor had me back on my feet in a week’s time. People in their twenties tend to take their health for granted and so I viewed my illness as little more than a pesky nuisance. However, even the most innocent cough can turn deadly with the billions upon billions of germs floating around in the air we breathe, not to mention that our hands are making contact with so many surfaces both consciously and subconsciously. Recent years have brought the SARS outbreak and the H1N1 ‘swine flu’ pandemic, and yet society did not grind to a halt even as health organizations continued to warn the public to be wary and take extra precautions. Hollywood films have often depicted post-apocalyptic futures ravaged by disease but versatile director Steven Soderbergh once again bucks convention with “Contagion,” a thought-provoking film in the same vein of his 2000 Academy Award-winning “Traffic” but instead of the illegal drug trade, it explores how the scientific community and general public would react when faced by a global pandemic. Soderbergh’s stylish editing manages to generate a tense atmosphere of unease thanks to its real world approach and thematic relevance but “Contagion” intentionally keeps its characters at arm’s length, which may limit its appeal among audiences expecting a more straightforward thriller. 

The film opens with a black screen and the sound of a hacking cough. Returning from a business trip in Hong Kong, Elizabeth ‘Beth’ Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) makes a stop at Chicago to meet up with an old boyfriend named John Neal before returning home to her family and husband Mitch (Matt Damon) in suburban Minneapolis. A montage ensues showing random individuals living in Hong Kong, London, and Tokyo experiencing flu-like symptoms and convulsions before suddenly dying. Back in Minnesota, Beth’s son Clark contracts the same mysterious illness while her condition continues to worsen. Mitch wakes up one morning to find his wife collapsed on the floor and suffering from a severe seizure. He rushes her to the hospital but the doctors are unable to save her and she dies from the unknown virus. Returning home in shock, Mitch discovers that the virus has now taken the life of his son as well. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) sends an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer named Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) to investigate the virus in Minneapolis. Meanwhile, Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) of the World Health Organization is sent to Hong Kong to investigate the origins of the virus. Dubbed MEV-1 (Meningoencephalitis Virus One), the virus begins to infect thousands of people around the world as the CDC races to find a vaccine. Internet blogger/journalist Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) fans the flames of conspiracy by accusing the CDC of withholding the cure at the behest of pharmaceutical companies. He begins to preach that a drug called Forsythia is able to stop MEV-1. Mass rioting and looting ensues as people succumb to panic while MEV-1 continues to infect and kill without discrimination. 

Judging from the initial previews, it wouldn’t be surprising if you mistook “Contagion” as another in a long line of post-apocalyptic films but Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns instead approaches the subject matter as a procedural by focusing on how the world would react when suddenly faced with a global pandemic. The various characters are largely ancillary as the virus is what drives the film’s interconnected subplots forward. What makes the film get under our skin is in how it realistically depicts the loss of social order with desperate people succumbing to mass hysteria and forced to take matters into their own hands in what appears to be a hopeless situation. The camera often lingers on seemingly innocuous objects that we touch everyday to show how easy and quick a disease can spread. A series of disquieting scenes show the world grinding to a halt as garbage and bodies pile up on the streets while buildings either sit abandoned or in a state of disarray due to rampant looting. What’s really shocking is how inefficient the bureaucracy is when it comes to handling a crisis, although given what happened with Hurricane Katrina back in 2005, this should not come as any real surprise. When Mears is setting up an emergency room at a local school in Minnesota, state officials barge in and blatantly ask ‘Is this coming out of your budget or ours?’ Apparently saving money takes precedence over saving lives. These people are even reluctant to shut down public schools in fear of working parents taking off from shopping during Black Friday. Soderbergh and Burns also explore how meaningless protocols prevents people from doing their job such as when Cheever wants to bring Mears back home but is unable to because an infected congressman has become the priority. Those in power keep from revealing information as a way to prevent panic but such tactics are shown to have the complete opposite effect as regular citizens become outraged and look for a scapegoat to blame. Our modern world allows instantaneous communication but it also shows how fast it can all crumble and fall apart at a moment’s notice. Like the virus itself, all this is presented in a clinical and detached manner as characters are killed off without a hint of emotion. When burying the infected bodies, bored workers muse not on the loss of life but the lack of body bags to store them. Even the colors in each frame invoke a sterile tone to reflect the matter-of-fact manner of how bad the situation is. 

However, the worldwide scope does lead to some stumbles as the subplots are presented in an uneven manner with Krumwiede lacking consistency as a character and Orantes disappearing for a large stretch until the final minutes of the film. Initially, Krumwiede is shown to be a hard-line conspiracy theorist but is later revealed to a selfish opportunist who is spreading lies about a miracle core yet his demeanor never seems to reflect that as he appears to genuinely believe in his convictions. In addition, the Orantes subplot is resolved in a rather xenophobic manner, even if it is unintentional. Nonetheless, it does not completely derail “Contagion” from being an effective cautionary tale of how easily our carefully constructed lives can fall apart at something so small that it cannot be seen with the naked eye. 

Soderbergh has gathered an impressive ensemble cast but all of them play unglamorous roles and are used to illustrate the themes of the film. There is no true ‘main’ character but Matt Damon makes for an effective audience stand-in as everyman Mitch Emhoff, providing a human touch to the proceedings even as the world falls apart around him. However, Bryan Cranston and John Hawkes end up being wasted due to the limited screen-time they have. Jude Law tends to lean toward scenery chewing but for the most part, the cast manages to give fairly nuanced performances despite their deliberately underwritten roles. 

“Contagion” was one of the first Blu-Ray releases of 2012 and while it won’t exactly blow anyone away, the video and audio qualities remain impressive. The film has a sharp look since it was shot with the RED MX digital camera with various yellow and blue filters used. Many of the environments come off as sterile in appearance but detail is strong and flesh-tones retain a natural color despite the various filters used. The only vibrant scenes that stand out are the flashbacks taking place in a casino in Hong Kong. On the audio front, the dialogue is handled well with Cliff Martinez’s jazz-techno score slowly ratcheting up the tension with its subtle thumping beats. Special features are slim with only three featurettes lasting from a paltry two to eleven minutes. Not even an audio commentary was included! 

Released on September 9, 2011, “Contagion” received largely positive reviews with 84% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics hailed it as a ‘tense, tightly plotted…exceptionally smart and scary disaster movie’ but audiences weren’t quite as enamored and graded the film a B- according to CinemaScore polling. Despite this supposedly ‘mediocre’ score, the film still managed to earn a solid $175 million worldwide ($76 million domestic) against an estimated $60 million production budget, although I suspect much of this money went toward the A-list cast’s paychecks and various travel expenses. Once again, Soderbergh has taken an unconventional approach to a familiar genre and the result is a stylish film that does not pander to the audience by resorting to meaningless CG spectacle or exposition. “Contagion” has its flaws but it does not diminish its most compelling aspect—the fragility of our modern world.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5

“Someone doesn't have to weaponize the bird flu. The birds are doing that.”