Movie Review: Contagion

This movie is both well paced and oddly timely in its release, and manages not to struggle too much beneath the weight of its all-star cast.  Contagion is genuinely intriguing and tragic, and touches on the important issues that emerge in the wake of any kind of disaster without being too preachy or heavy-handed.

The film follows the explosive progression of an unidentified disease in various clusters throughout the world.  Gwyneth Paltrow's character Beth's demise gets the ball rolling, and members of the CDC scramble to determine whether she is the all-important "index patient" responsible for the initial spread of the disease.  Matt Damon plays her grieving husband who is also mysteriously immune to the disease, a convenience which also affords him immunity to the predictable panic, looting, and rioting which ensue as the disease takes more and more lives. 

Director Steven Soderbergh tells the story with his usual talent for scope and depth, though there are a few loose ends not quite tied up by the film's end (though it's very possible that this is intentional).  The acting on the whole is pretty good, though there are definite standouts, including Kate Winslet, Jennifer Ehle, and Marion Cotillard, who all play strong female characters fighting to understand and contain the disease on different fronts.  I think I could have observed individual performances a bit better if I hadn't been so busy cataloging the famous people on the screen (there's an appearance by Demetri Martin, for goodness sake), so I suppose you could call it a bit distracting, though not necessarily detrimental to the film.

What is most affecting about this movie, though, is the moment at which it emerges.  The decision to release it two days prior to the 9/11 anniversary seems very deliberate given the tone and message of the film, which explores not only the possibilities of biological disaster, but the possibilities of our fear and how we might react in such circumstances.  I found it strange to hear some of my fellow audience members laughing at some of the behavior of the panicked citizens in the film, and in a way it was almost affronting.  Part of me wanted nothing more than to turn around and ask if they didn't think they or their loved ones would do the exact same things with their own lives on the line.  I guess this just serves to show that a film like this can either bounce right off the viewer or stick with them in a profound way, and maybe that depends more on the watcher than the material itself.