Film Review: 'Contagion'
- Cizonite
- Mar 14, 2020
- 4 min read
Opening Hello
It's not another *checks calendar* 11 months before I come out of the dreary, darkly-lit family basement for my annual Oscar binge and yearly roundup, so consider this a special review in a special time, about a disturbingly correct, yet ultimately hopeful film that has aged monumentally better than anyone could have hoped for.
Opening Jokes
2020's Must-see Movie, is from 2011.
Well, it might as well have been called Corona: The Movie.
Get the joke? Some levity, because laughter is medicine for the soul.
But seriously, don't laugh, laughter is contagious.
It's certainly a better horror movie than Quarantine.
Better mask your disgust, and covid your eyes.
NO REGRETS. This is 'Contagion'.
The Plot
Contagion is a 2011 Steven Soderbergh-directed medical thriller, starring a game international cast, spanning from Jude Law and “Matrix dude” to “Hey, the French lady from La Vie En Rose" (as per my brilliant father), in one of the bleakest ‘Who's Who' Actor's Edition episode: every 5 minutes, there will be a new, starry celebrity to keep your attention on screen, and most likely, they will die by their next appearance on screen.
Using multiple narrative threads as the main crux, whose connection are minimal beside the main epidemic, the movie utilizes diverse viewpoints from citizens (Matt Damon), first responders (Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet), news media (Jude Law), government figureheads (Bryan Cranston), and impoverished international populations (Chin Han, Marion Cotillard), and paints a superbly well-rounded picture of dark times, one that we might face in the near future if preventative measures and humanitarian morals are not put to the forefront.
Why (And How) Contagion Became 2020’s Must See Movie
It's time we play: “DAT MOVIE DIALOGUE OR GOVERNMENT QUOTES?”
“Our best defense has been social distancing: no handshaking, stay home when you're sick, wash your hands frequently"
If you had “Both" on your Bingo sheet, YOU ARE CORRECT!
The coronavirus is spreading fast - and we've seen the damage it is doing to the world. I'm not here to preach to the choir: this is a safe space for film, and film alone. But sometimes film can represent what the world simply can't put into words. Aside from its core value as entertainment and/or escapism, Contagion inadvertently became a pseudo-documentary of 2020, and consequently, was promoted as Hollywood's poster-child for “must-see viewing" and “woke forecast". However, it was the vision of two men unimpeded, concocted in the wake of the 2003 SARS and 2009 flu pandemics; I present to you, Steven Soderbergh and Scott Z. Burns.
Steven Soderbergh is a talented filmmaker, a master of surreal, independent filmmaking, one with a distinct visual style, deft tonal juggling like none other, and an almost inane talent to ring out discomfort from his audience: the likes of The Ocean's Trilogy, Side Effects and Traffic would support this statement.
He is, however, problematic: he said he was retiring in 2013, before backtracking 4 years later; he had Meryl Streep go “Panamaface" in an attempt to...shock and deceive(?) in the recent, criminally underrated The Laundromat; and he was an advocate for IPhone shooting, an economic but deeply flawed approach that has done nothing but discouraged filmmakers from mastering the craft and enduring years of hard work that comes with filmmaking, years that Soderbergh himself had to put in before successfully utilizing the device.
But never has he been more in his power than when working with Scott Z. Burns (The Report, No Time To Die), and they struck the sweet spot with Contagion. Soderbergh and Burns conducted thorough research into pandemic tendencies and measures, working with WHO, CDC, and various medical experts to bring to screen as visceral a virus outbreak can become.
It's eerily accurate how Contagion shadows the Coronavirus' outbreak in its early stages (granted, with more deaths and dramatic side effects but my point stands!), and the decision to not name the virus was a deliberate masterstroke, compounding the all-too-plausible outbreak situations (incubation periods, food shortages, self quarantines) that the characters found themselves in then, and in turn, we find ourselves in now.
Is It Actually Good?
A cough: that's how the film starts, and I couldn't stress how effective and grueling it sounds in this day and age.
Unlike most virus movies, which flavor the dramatic in military interventions, zombies and the likes, Contagion firmly plants its foot on the ground, swerving away from fantastical elements or gruesome imageries, and opting for a realistic interpretation of the best and worst of humans in times of stripped down social standards, as well as fear mongering, moral ethics, and international cooperation.
One of the reasons Contagion has aged so well, is because of the fake news aspect. Surfing Facebook nowadays, and you’ll find yourself swamped in a plethora of indiscernible news outlets, with catchy headlines, false reports and government-defacing information. These outlets are a product of fear mongering amongst social network users, who are living in a time when the thirst for rapid news, no matter the legitimacy, has far outweighed the need for understanding and research.
As conspiracy theorist/junk blogger Alan Krumwiede (played with abnormal perfection from Jude Law) goes on his destructive blogspread, he brings with him false hope and illegitimate cures to inflate his own selfish economic benefits. He is as close the movie has to a comical villain, yet I couldn't discern the ethical differences between his troll-culture representation, and the face mask/hand sanitizer ' booming capitalization of the virus, or The Federal Reserve's decision to pump 1.5 trillion dollars in capital injections to basically CPR the stock market into false stability.
In the end, however, Contagion ends with hope: hope for human sympathy to come through, hope that society prevails through seemingly end times, and hope in the multitudes of courageous, brilliant medical experts, government figures, and first responders, who are working ceaselessly to help pull the world through the outbreak.
It is a message one could only hope for now.
Overall: A
Is the movie an accurate, but ultimately fictional adaptation of the Coronavirus outbreak right now? Yes.
Is this movie helpful for any reasons besides raising precautionary attitudes towards pandemics? (i.e. reasons such as medical expertise, international relations’ depictions, etc.)? Absolutely not, this is a Hollywood film, not a WHO awareness video.
Is it good? Yes. Without a doubt.
It's a glowing recommendation from me to anyone suffering from this pandemic, which is, well, everyone.
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