Contagion

3/4

Starring: Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law

Rated PG-13 for Disturbing Content and Some Language

I have long waited for a pandemic thriller that actually works.  The potential for suspense is almost limitless; I mean, can you think of anything scarier than a villain you can’t see or hear and kills without mercy or discrimination?  I can’t.  Oddly enough, Hollywood has tried to tap into this fear a number of times with little success.  In 1950, acclaimed director Elia Kazan made “Panic in the Streets,” about pneumonic plague, but that was hampered by poor pacing and a performance by Jack Palance that brought to mind Lorenzo Lamas in “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.”  In 1995, Wolfgang Peterson tried to do the same with “Outbreak,” but he was saddled with a messy script and his direction wasn’t his best work either.  While “Contagion” is certainly not the ultimate exploration of this terrifying scenario, it’s the best thus far, and the only one that’s worth seeing.

Beth Emhoff (Paltrow) has just come home from Hong Kong where she was celebrating the opening of a new factory.  She’s not feeling well, and thinks it’s jet lag.  Then she falls to the ground in a seizure, and later dies at the hospital.  Her husband, Mitch (Damon) is devastated and confused, moreso when his son suffers the same fate.  It becomes clear to the entire world that they have a pandemic on their hands.  Millions die, and researchers like Erin Mears (Winslet), Ellis Cheever (Fishburne) and Leonora Orantes (Cotillard) race against time to figure out what this disease is so they can find a cure.

“Contagion” works better as a sociological experiment than an actual thriller.  The film explores all facets about what might happen in this kind of a pandemic.  Doctors are working around the clock to find out what the disease is, where it came from, and how to stop it.  Politicians are trying to do damage control to prevent the widespread panic for as long as possible, and conspiracy theorists, sensing a huge payday by preying on people’s fears, sell snake oil and throw out accusations at the government.  It’s compelling stuff, to be sure, but there’s a problem.

The problem is that the film is more about ideas than characters to the extent that it’s hard to really care about anyone in the film.  The actors do their jobs, but there’s no time for any character development or sympathy.  The cast is top-notch, and no one skates by on charisma or name association alone.  But for the most part they’re defined by their types.  The only one who manages to escape the limitations of the script is Jude Law.  Law ends his period of lazy performances that brought his career to a standstill, giving a terrific performance as a sleazy blogger who seeks to capitalize on people’s fears for his own financial gain (it’s doubtful that there will be any Oscar nods for acting give to this film, but if there are, Law will be at the top of the list).

Steven Sodebergh is most comfortable in ensemble movies (“Ocean’s Eleven,” “Traffic,” etc.).  This is an extremely difficult genre to get right because there is lots of material, and all of it must be given its due.  But Sodebergh is talented enough to pull it off, and the result is a fascinating, if imperfect, tale.  One of the problems that Sodebergh runs into (apart from the lack of emotional involvement) is that he fails to effectively put the crisis into a social context.  We hear people talk about how terrible the disease is, and there are a few shots of deserted streets and panicking people, but that’s about it.  We never really grasp how desperate the situation is.  And the film is tied up in a way that’s almost (but not quite) a deus ex machina.

Still, the film is worth seeing for what it does right.