(Time to stock up on the Purell, folks…)
CAST: Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Ehle, Elliott Gould, Sanaa Lathan, Monique Gabriela Curnen, Daria Stroukos, Tien Ho Yui, Josie Cho.
DIRECTOR: Steven Soderbergh
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some damn good reasons to bathe in Purell - over and over again - straight ahead…
IT’S LIKE THIS: You know how sometimes you’ll travel to someplace exotic on business or holiday, then come back with some sort of cruddy illness as a souvenir? Well, that fairly common situation goes nuclear when Minneapolis executive Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns from a Hong Kong trip with a virulent super-flu capable of destroying the world. And I thought coming back from Hawaii with color-treated hair inadvertently bleached to a flaming shade of red by the saltwater and sun was annoying. You’ve heard about the Bird Flu? Well, just call this one the, ahem, “Beth Flu”. Turns out the Beth Flu can be transmitted by touch, breath, or possibly even telepathy (kidding about that last part - but that would be scary, wouldn‘t it?). To make matters worse, on her way back to Minnesota, Beth (who is married to a smokin’ hot guy, by the way) has a layover in Chicago long enough to allow her have a booty call with an ex-boyfriend (stupid bitch). Which means he gets the Beth Flu, too. Which means, Chicago is pretty much fucked in addition to the state of Minnesota.
When not only Beth and her fuck buddy in Chicago both go into convulsions and croak, but also a Ukrainian model in London (Daria Stroukous) and a Hong Kong bike messenger and his sister (Tien Ho Yui, Josie Cho), it becomes clear to the authorities that they are dealing with a formidable new bug that is spreading around the world at an alarming rate (Ya fuckin‘ think?). Some of the folks who get pulled into the race to find out more about the Beth Flu are: (1) Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne), nice-guy head of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta; (2) Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet), idealistic CDC field analyst who travels to Minnesota to study Beth‘s case; (3) Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard), cool and composed World Health Organization (WHO) field analyst who travels to Hong Kong to trace Beth‘s movements there; (4) Mitch Emhoff (Matt Damon), Beth’s aforementioned smokin’ hot regular-joe husband who seems to have a natural immunity to the virus; (5) Alan Krumweide (Jude Law), super-douchebag blogger who drums up a national panic to promote his blog’s viewership (asshole); (6) Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle), intense and focused CDC lab analyst who is working on a vaccine for the Beth Flu and whose own dad catches the disease; (7) Dr. Ian Sussman (Elliott Gould), spastic UC Berkley scientist who is the first to parse the bio-code of the Beth Flu; and (8) Dr. Aubrey Cheever (Sanaa Lathan), Elliot’s smokin’ hot wife in Chicago whom he tries to get to his side in Atlanta before the pandemonium breaks out.
THE DUDE (OR DUDETTE) MOST LIKELY TO SAVE THE DAY: Everyone above is trying to do their part, but the one who really gets results is (*SPOILER ALERT*) Dr. Ally Hextall. Talk about a last-minute save. Go, my girl…
EYE CANDY MOST LIKELY TO FIRE UP A WOODY: Everyone is very attractive in this movie - but this award goes to my man Matt D., who rocks that longer haircut like nobody’s business. Plus he plays a guy who is probably The World’s Best Husband. If I wasn’t already spoken for I’d totally force him to marry me.
MOST INTENTIONALLY SCARY SCENE: Beth, the cheating tramp, going into convulsions and biting it right out of the blue. Also, the scene back in Hong Kong where we see Beth contaminating everyone at a casino by touch, breath, and telepathy (kidding again). Oh, and the scene where our valiant Dr. Erin Mears discovers that (fuck) she has the Beth Flu now, too.
MOST UNINTENTIONALLY SCARY SCENE: Dr. Leonora Orantes being abducted and held hostage by desperate Chinese officials in exchange for being the first to get the vaccine. Damn, dudes. I guess it’s true that bad times make bad men…
HOTTEST SCENE: Any scene with Matt D. in it. Mmmmmmmmmm…
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW: Where did the Beth Flu originate? Who gave it to her in Hong Kong? What will Leonora discover when she traces Beth’s movements in Hong Kong? What will Erin discover when she examines Beth’s remains in Minneapolis? What does Mitch’s immunity mean for creating a vaccine? How will Ally test her serum? Will she have to do it on herself to expedite things? Is she willing to make that sacrifice? What happens when the virus starts to mutate? Will the scientists be able to keep up with it? Will anyone survive? And how can the country keep a calm state of mind with that asshole Alan stoking their panic with his inflammatory blog posts? Why doesn’t the mo-fo just devote his blog to harmless and raunchy movie reviews? Ahem?
WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH “CONTAGION”: If you are a fan of one or more of the all-star ensemble cast. And if you like race-against-time thrillers that are reasonably suspenseful. And if you are a fan of director Steven Soderbergh.
WHY YOU MAY NOT ENJOY “CONTAGION”: If you like your thrillers to revolve around a smaller group of people and told on a smaller canvas. If you don’t like trying to keep track of a large cast of characters, this may give you a headache. Also, if you are a hypochondriac, avoid this movie. Big time. Otherwise, you may never leave your house again without taking a bucket of Purell with you.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: Director Steven Soderbergh’s 2000 ensemble drama TRAFFIC chronicled the problem of the international drug trade, with its insidious tentacles reaching around the globe and affecting a wide variety of characters from different walks of life and economic levels. His most recent effort, the flawed but still worthwhile CONTAGION, takes the same approach to the subject of a deadly pandemic rapidly decimating the global population.
CONTAGION’s strongest point is its cast, which includes Academy Award-Winners Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cotillard, and Kate Winslet. The acting talent on parade here is formidable, which also includes Laurence Fishburne, Jennifer Ehle, Jude Law, Elliot Gould, and Sanaa Lathan. When you have a large cast of characters, and so very little time to have them register sufficiently in the eyes, minds, and hearts of the audience, it helps considerably to have a group of skillful performers. And Soderbergh has assembled such a group.
CONTAGION starts strong, establishing the first stirrings of the disease with chilly confidence. We meet all the major players in a series of crisp and effective scenes that not only give us a clue to their personalities, but also ratchet up the tension as the disease accelerates its spread. It isn’t until the film approaches the third act that the excitement begins to wane somewhat. Not to give anything away, but instead of peaking to a crescendo, the film’s tension simply plateaus unexpectedly. Soderbergh was likely going for a more realistic rather than fantastic third act, which is commendable and appropriate given this movie‘s pseudo-documentary tone. Unfortunately, you can’t help but wonder if there was another way for him to do this without having the film’s suspense dissipate so abruptly. You can’t help but leave the theater thinking: “that’s it?” The ironic last-minute twist and final shot, despite being clever, doesn’t entirely eliminate this sense of dissatisfaction.
The cast, as expected given their pedigree, performs well. Gwyneth Paltrow is affecting in her small but pivotal role as Beth Emhoff, the woman who sets off the entire pandemic. Kate Winslet makes Erin Mears very sympathetic, especially when all of her dedicated efforts to stop the contagion just end up with her contracting it, as well. Very tragic, and Winslet makes Erin’s plight an affecting one. Marion Cotillard is also good as Leonora Orantes, the WHO analyst whose efforts, like Erin’s, are rewarded with her being endangered. Only, unlike Erin, Leonora doesn’t catch the disease, but is kidnapped by officials trying to save their remote village. Jude Law is vividly slimy as the blogger whose supreme self-interest in the middle of the chaos and despair is deplorable. I guess it’s a testament to Law’s performance that you almost hope Alan will catch the bug himself as just desserts. Laurence Fishburne and Sanaa Lathan are equally effective as the CDC couple trying to balance responsibility to the world with their own survival.
The best characters, though, are the two who form what passes for CONTAGION’s emotional center: Matt Damon’s Mitch Emhoff and Jennifer Ehle’s Dr. Ally Hextall. While their storylines never cross, Mitch and Ally’s separate threads are the film’s best. Damon does a great job of showing Mitch’s confusion and courage. This is a guy who has to not only deal with losing his wife, but also has to grapple with discovering she was unfaithful to him when she was alive. And on top of that, he has to deal with the loss of a stepson from the same disease, and the need to protect his surviving child from not only the virus but also the lawlessness and hysteria gripping the nation. Mitch’s story is the film’s spine, and it’s as sturdy as it is because of Damon’s compelling performance.
Then there’s the lovely and talented Jennifer Ehle as the film’s surprise heroine. Her Dr. Ally Hextall uncovers the vaccine to the disease - by experimenting on herself, a risky and unethical move that she only makes because the whole World is at risk and time is running out. Ally also has a nice scene with her dying father (Dan Flannery), a doctor who contracted the disease because he refused to turn away sick patients - like many irresponsible physicians did to save themselves from exposure. As a result, he got sick himself. Clearly, selflessness and sacrifice run in the Hextall family. Ehle, who is a beautiful blend of Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver (two of my favorite actresses), turns Ally into CONTAGION’s heroic “wild card”. Like father, like daughter.
Another reason - besides that unexpectedly weak third act (which is everything that happens after Ally’s discovery of the cure) - that this film doesn’t rate past an above average rating is because of one vital plot point that is ignored and therefore becomes a major flaw: if Mitch is immune to the disease, then why is no effort made at all to try to study him and find out what makes him so special - and generate a serum? You would think that someone who is not affected by a virus that has already killed almost 8,000,000 people around the world (and rising) would be a Godsend to the medical community. Instead, Soderbergh and writer Scott Burns attempt to dismiss this should-be-important matter by having Erin say that blood serums are “expensive and take awhile.” Even so, shouldn’t SOME attempt be made to look into Mitch’s immunity? It makes no sense to just let him go home to Minneapolis without any further scrutiny. Needless to say, a very large credibility issue. And, unfortunately, one that is enough to keep the film from a solid ***½ (good) rating.
Ultimately, CONTAGION is a decent, above average ensemble effort that might play a little better on DVD. Onscreen, you keep waiting for a payoff that never really comes. And that leaves you feeling just a little unsatisfied.
