It's a strange film that can make you feel like you're watching a documentary and actually wonder why you don't know how the whole thing turns out already. This was the sensation I was left with after watching Contagion, which like Soderbergh's other movies, weaves a lot of different stories and characters together to give you a full look at a particular issue (the one that struck me most was a comparison to Traffic, which I don't like, FYI). I'm not sure what he improved for Contagion but I liked the overall effect much better.
Basically, Contagion follows an alternate universe where an epidemic begins. Similar to SARS or Swine Flu or even the most recent H1N1, we see an infection (with a 25% mortality rate) unfold globally and watch how many different elements of society deal with it. First and foremost is the CDC (Centers for Disease Control)
and the WHO (World Health Organization) as the first cases appear in isolated pockets all over the world. There's a mystery element throughout the film as they seek the "patient zero" that initiated the whole outbreak. Unlike movies like Outbreak, this has a relatively low mortality, highly contagious (someone can basically touch you, so like the common cold) and doesn't make people bleed from their eyes. To the film's benefit, they seem to have focused a bit more on the societal and governmental response rather than making an outlandish disease that couldn't exist.
Some of this seems well thought out and creative in how they portray what are certainly published protocols for something like the CDC. Laurence Fishburne is in charge of this outbreak, and sends Kate Winslet to the field (Minnesota) to investigate and get the local health department up to speed in coordinating a response. We see her struggle to investigate the cases (Matt Damon's wife was the first case, which she passed to a lover on the way home) and to get the locals to react accordingly. Fishburne is also working with his scientists, Jennifer Ehle, to understand the disease and eventually create a vaccine, which they seem to do on a realistic, if panic-driven, timeline. And then Jude Law is a semi-paranoid blogger who wants to make the information about this potential epidemic public and points out all the people who benefit from the epidemic (drug companies, etc.) and will withhold the drugs or vaccines until it's most profitable to sell them. His story was a little over the top (or maybe that was just his teeth), but his part of the story needed to be told, if it was done in a really uneven manner.
There were still a LOT of stories that felt criminally under-developed. Marion Cotillard is the WHO representative sent to Hong Kong to map the first case, and is kidnapped and held for months. Matt Damon never becomes sick - why wasn't that discussed at ALL!!! A lot of the weaving together of all the stories is done well, but overall, you still feel like you're watching a documentary and haven't really become involved in very many lives. Good, but not great, leaves you with too strong a need to wash your hands. 3.5 of 5 stars/lambs
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Labels
2 stars
2.5 stars
3 stars
3.5 stars
4 stars
4.5 stars
5 lambs
5 stars
action movie
actors
actresses
Alphabet Meme
Animated movies
awards
bad movies
battlestar galactica
best movies
blockbusters
blog cabins
bloggers
British TV
characters
chick flicks
Christmas
classics
comedy
Comments
documentary
dramas
DVD
emmys
epic
family films
fashion
Father's Day
Favela Rising
females
final season
foreign films
Friday Night Lights
friends
Golden Globes
good movies
great cast
guest post
holidays
Independent film
james mcavoy
kevin smith
kids
kids movies
LAMB
Lists
marketing mistakes
Monday musicals
movie from book
Movie meme
movies
music from movies
musicals
New Releases
old movies
Oscar Nominations
Oscar winners
period pieces
podcasts
predictions
Random
Reel Insight
Robert Downey Jr.
romance
sci-fi
songs
sports
straight to DVD
summer candy
The West Wing
Top-Grossing
Tuesdays
TV meme
TV Shows
why i love
3 comments:
Contagion becomes a battle between what it is and what it could have been. It satisfies just enough to warrant its existence while frustrating one with its potential. Nice review.
Dan O. I think you hit the nail on the head - I did feel unsatisfied by all the stories they left unfulfilled, but liked that they attempted such a broad view.
I skipped it in theater but sounds like a rental to look forward to. With so many characters, having some story threads left open-ended was probably to be expected. Glad you liked it overall Jess :)
Post a Comment