Contagion

“Contagion” is a convincingly horrifying look at the deadly microscopic world of viruses and it tells a thrilling story through numerous people affected by an unknown disease revealing the dangers of not washing your hands and turning the most sensible audience member into a complete germaphobe.

“Contagion” contains many plot lines in the film that shifts back and forth. It starts out with Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returning from a trip to Hong Kong feeling a little sick but just calls it “jetlag.” Soon her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) is taking her to the hospital after a seizure and his step-son Clark (Griffin Kane) is also feeling a little under the weather. At the hospital Beth dies from the mysterious disease and Mitch is quarantined but not sick… yet.

After more people in Hong Kong, London, Minneapolis and Chicago are getting sick it’s time to call the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) sends Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet) to Minneapolis, where Mitch and Beth live to try to contain the disease. When containment begins to fail they try to treat the disease as best as possible and Dr. Cheever gets a team to first identify the virus and then work on a vaccine, which proves to be more difficult than it appears.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also gets involved. They send Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) to Hong Kong working with a Chinese man Sun Feng (Chin Han). Once again the task is not an easy one, after all how do you track something smaller than a grain of salt? The death toll rises in Hong Kong as well and Sun Feng’s mother and village are now affected and he will do anything to get them better.

The other piece to the puzzle is freelance blogger/journalist Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) who lives in San Francisco. He sees a video of an infected bus man and knows something big is coming, but no one believes him. When more people get sick he weaves a web of conspiracy that the government is somehow behind it but they’re just letting people die. Then he contracts the disease and claims he has found the cure.

As the disease spreads all over the globe people stay inside, not making any physical contact and the world has turned into almost an apocalypse. Soon it’s not just a matter of surviving the disease it’s surviving the lack of food and desperate people. Essentially: if the disease doesn’t kill you, your neighbors will.

The plot hopping doesn’t slow down or confuse the audience, but tells a solid linear story. It shows the audience enough of each character that they grow to care for all of them. It also balances well and doesn’t show too much of one story over the other, at times it seems like the script has forgotten a character but then they show up again. Also by doing this it skips the least entertaining parts of each story. Best of all, the questions are answered at the end, often screenwriters don’t give audiences the courtesy of resolving untied ends but “Contagion” does.

“Contagion” also tells an exciting, fearfully entertaining story. At times it slows down but then the audience is hit with a new threat or danger and thrust back into the story again. Every character is put into life-threatening situations and the audience is always asking who will live and who will die.

Part of the intensity of “Contagion” is the realism of the film. Not only are the entire cast performances perfect in portraying the fear, sadness or the symptoms of the disease but also the medical aspect as well. “Contagion” was also accurate in the medical terminology used, the quarantine procedures and the lab work as well. It felt like it was right out of a chapter in The Hot Zone.

“Contagion” will take audiences on a terrifyingly gripping ride into the world of the smallest deadliest organisms. Also the authentic performances by Winslet, Law, Damon, Fishburne, Paltrow, Cotillard takes the film above and beyond most movies of the genre. However, be forewarned that after watching “Contagion” you will flock to the store to stock up on Costco size bottles of Germex and you will forever see other people as giant Petri dishes full of bacteria and viruses.