"Contagion," Steven Soderbergh's Film About an Epidemic, Entertains While Informing

Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) is Patient Zero in "Contagion," the new movie about a viral epidemic/pandemic, that is directed by Steven Soderbergh. Why Beth has to have a backstory of infidelity is something I cannot explain and, given her brief time on film, I don't feel the need to shout "Spoiler Alert!." The rest of the film seems to pay no attention to that plot point (and multiple others), either. Why we had to be told that Gwyneth would die in the trailer for the film is another good question. (Never a good idea to give away all the suspenseful stuff in the trailer.)

It doesn't matter, in the overall scheme of things, because Soderbergh and writer Scott Z Burns still do a good job of ratcheting up the tension of this all-star cast in a movie with the tag-line, "Don't talk to anyone. Don't touch anyone." The scenes of a panicked public gone mad and the adolescent romance between Mitch's (Damon's) daughter and her boyfriend are also nice touches to show that humanity survives and things will return to normal.

"Contagion's" Cast

The cast includes such Oscar-caliber stars as Kate Winslet portraying Dr. Erin Mears, who helps fight the outbreak of the mysterious virus; Matt Damon as Beth's husband Mitch; Laurence Fishbourne as Dr. Ellis Cheever, head CDC operative in Atlanta, Georgia; Marion Cotillard as Dr. Leonara Orantes, a French physician assisting with the fight; Elliott Gould as Dr. Ian Sussmann, is an eccentric lone wolf researcher; Jude Law as Alan Krumwiede, an aggressive blogger who breaks the story and stays on it; and Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad") as Lyle Haggerty, representing the government. [I couldn't help myself: I half-expected Cranston's character to offer the suffering sick folk some crystal meth when things got really bleak. Which they did almost immediately.]

Origins of the Epidemic

Beth Emhoff travels to Hong Kong and, because "Somewhere in the world, the wrong pig met up with the wrong bat," her meal in a casino has unintended consequences, not only for her, but for the entire world. Lines like, "It's hard to know what it is without knowing where it came from" and "It kills every cell we put it in" are not encouraging. Rhesus monkeys must endure additional indignities in order to save mankind. ("First we shoot them into space and them we shoot them full of a virus.") Ultimately, as the plot has it, "We have a virus with no antidote." This is not good and every cough, whether on celluloid or in the crowded theater, resonates with the audience.

Historical Basis

I used to listen to my mother talk about the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed 1% of the world's population. Mom was born in 1907, so she was 11 years old when some class members in her small school in Hospers, Iowa, failed to show up for class. When she went to her friends' houses to find out where they were that day, she learned that they would never again be coming to school. Or anywhere else. Her classmates had died of the deadly Spanish flu and paranoia (and school closings) mounted as the death toll rose.

I also remember the closing of public swimming pools in the days before Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine in 1955, (a year when I was approximately the same age as my mother during the Spanish flu scare.) My best friend's mother died of polio after lingering in an iron lung. Neighbors would not even make contact with the victim's family at the door, but simply left the funeral food on the front step and ran. Even as recently as "W's" administration in 2009, there were swine flu concerns, and the H5N1 bird flu still remains dangerous and capable of causing a pandemic, according to scientists.

Societal Breakdown

The most interesting part of the film, for me, was how society breaks down when faced with a crisis of this proportion. It becomes every man (or woman) for him or her self. Even the do-gooders (nuns, nurses, volunteers) are overrun and pushed aside as food runs short and the supply of what may (or may not) be a palliative measure---a homeopathic remedy known as Forsythia---runs short. It took me right back to my Sociology classes and its studies on crowd psychology.

In today's climate, I couldn't help but think of the strident followers of some political elements, those who think that "he who yells the loudest wins the argument" and are so proud of their membership in the NRA and their familiarity with guns. I could really imagine those individuals leading the charge to break in to pharmacies to take the drug everyone thinks will make their family safe, or launching aggressive measures to find out where the doctors (who get the drug first) might live, in order to break in and steal same. All this plays is depicted in the film.

Humanitarians Prevail

One nice humanitarian touch was the "regular guy" played by Oscar-nominee John Hawkes (Uncle Teardrop in "Winter's Bone," whose birth name in Alexandria, Minnesota was John Perkins). Hawkes' character has an ADD son and asks the head doctor (Laurence Fishbourne as Dr. Ellis Cheever) for advice, early on. Cheever says it is out of his area of expertise, but he knows it's treatable and he can recommend someone in the field. Later, Cheever will personally see that the boy is inoculated. Humanitarianism lives on.

Nevertheless, we are told that Cheever is going to be brought up on charges because he let his new bride in on a secret: the severity of the epidemic. He urged her to evacuate Chicago (which is embargoed) despite being sworn to secrecy. The good doctor wanted the love of his life to make a run for Atlanta, where the CDC (Center for Disease Control) is located. When this is revealed, the script line is, "They're looking for a scapegoat. You just made it easy."

It is little old meth-maker Bryan Cranston, the government stooge, who informs Cheever that his neck is still on the chopping block, late in the film. Again, this plot strand was as needless and loose-hanging and disconnected as the personal information about Gwyneth shared early in the film. I write fiction. I know how this works. You insert an idea, intending to integrate that plot thread later on. Other things intrude, get in the way, or seem more important. A newer, shinier idea crops up. The planted seed never grows or fluorishes. That was my biggest complain about the film: dropped plot conceits that are never fully fleshed out or brought to fruition.

Riveting, Intense, Informative

The film is otherwise quite riveting, intense and educational. Admittedly, it is hard to care too deeply about characters who drift through as quickly as pedestrians caught in a giant revolving door, but the main idea (i.e., man's vulnerability to forces outside his control) sticks with you, propels the film and holds your interest for the duration. [After all, it's almost cold and flu season.]

Jude Law as Alan Krumwiede

A third plot point that disrupted the smooth flow of the movie was Jude Law's character, Alan Krumwiede. With a surname like "Krumwiede," chances are that Jude isn't going to be "the good guy," although, at first, we think he is. He is an aggressive blogger who breaks the virus story and helps it go wide before the government wants the word to get out. I found Jude Law somewhat extraneous in "Road to Perdition" as a hit man, and his character is again extraneous in this film, except to point out that, in times of peril, there are people who profit mightily from the misfortune of others. It has ever been thus.

In this day and age of Wiki Leaks and Julian Assange, Jude is Julian. Unfortunately, that is another sub-plot that does not seem all that well-integrated into the main storyline. It almost seems that the script wants Jude to function as the "surprise twist" in a plot that is otherwise pretty straightforward in showing how doctors are not "Jesus in a lab coat" and in explaining in riveting detail how a virus like MEV1, (the fictional virus of the film), could cause widespread death and disruption in a very short time, spreading to as many as one in 12 with 25 to 30% attrition by Day 26.

Predecessors on Film

The film is light years better than Dustin Hoffman stumbling around as Colonel Sam Daniels in 1995's "Outbreak" (Dustin looked ridiculous in that suit) and is better compared to 1971's "The Andromeda Strain," which had Michael Crichton as one of the screenwriters.

Director/cinematographer Soderbergh vaulted to stardom at age 26 with "Sex, Lies and Videotape" (featuring a then very thin James Spader) and regained his early form with 1998's "Out of Sight." In 2000, he earned a Best Director Oscar for "Traffic" and also directed Julia Roberts to her Oscar in "Erin Brockovich."

Soderbergh's Comments

It's been 10 years since Soderbergh's big hit "Ocean's Eleven" and he suggested to Colin Covert of the Minneapolis Star Tribune that after his next 3 films he is going to take some major time off. However, Soderbergh wanted to do "Contagion" because, he said, "It felt 'zeitgeisty' to me in the same way that 'Traffic' did when we were making it...that there was something in the air. In this case, literally." The political tone of angry mobs in this film is not coincidental. As Covert said in his review of the film, "'Contagion' plays like a parable of a stricken body politic. The film describes an America where confusion and fear explode when things get crazy, where ordinary people struggle to survive in a society coming apart."

Verdict

So, see "Contagion" for its impressive medical information and pay less attention to the backstories, Try hard not to criticize overmuch the lost thread plots that seemed like good ideas when they were first thrown out there, but probably should have been pruned before the film's release.