I have rarely been as scared at a film than I was in Steven Soderbergh's Contagion. That's not to say it was a horror movie, but it will seep into your conscience like a disease, and for what it's worth, it really does it's job well.
The entire pandemic of fear comes after a mom (Gwyneth Paltrow) comes home from a trip to Japan and begins the spread of a terrifying disease that begins to infect the entire world. People attempt to stop it (Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne at that) and there are a whole slew of celebrities filling in for characters either working against, working with, or dying from this disease. Soderbergh has an extremely effective sense of detail, and he is able to spin this into one of the most realistic pandemic horror films. Soderbergh uses the state of global anxiety and focuses that through a medical lens, creating a sense of bio-terrorism; one that seems so close to home as Contagion opened 2 days before the 10th anniversary of September 11th. Though there is rarely use of subtlety in his notions, the ideas and concepts of fear in Contagion may just keep you away from restaurants, and up all night long.
However nicely Mr. Soderbergh's detailed film plays out, it certainly gets lost within itself along the way. Scott Z. Burns' script gave plenty of hokey dialogue, and though the cast probably has more Oscar nominations between them than anyone would care to count, most of them are wasted here. Almost none of the characters are given sufficient depth; I left the film not remembering a single characters name. And perhaps that wasn't the point; perhaps the idea behind Contagion was the widespread nature of this fear, this disease. But even then, several characters and plot lines were complete unnecessary and only hindered the film from reaching it's full potential. Kate Winslet turns in an excellent performance as Dr. Erin Mears, an Intelligence Service Officer, who is on a mission to figure out whats causing this catastrophe. Winslet is intense, and real, and the audience is with her all the way. Unfortunately, out of the dizzying amounts of people we're introduced to, she is the only one you can feel for. And that very well may be part of Contagion's cold, bleak plan: to disconnect because of fear, only drives the fear itself. Makes you wonder, what's the real pandemic going on here? B
The entire pandemic of fear comes after a mom (Gwyneth Paltrow) comes home from a trip to Japan and begins the spread of a terrifying disease that begins to infect the entire world. People attempt to stop it (Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne at that) and there are a whole slew of celebrities filling in for characters either working against, working with, or dying from this disease. Soderbergh has an extremely effective sense of detail, and he is able to spin this into one of the most realistic pandemic horror films. Soderbergh uses the state of global anxiety and focuses that through a medical lens, creating a sense of bio-terrorism; one that seems so close to home as Contagion opened 2 days before the 10th anniversary of September 11th. Though there is rarely use of subtlety in his notions, the ideas and concepts of fear in Contagion may just keep you away from restaurants, and up all night long.
However nicely Mr. Soderbergh's detailed film plays out, it certainly gets lost within itself along the way. Scott Z. Burns' script gave plenty of hokey dialogue, and though the cast probably has more Oscar nominations between them than anyone would care to count, most of them are wasted here. Almost none of the characters are given sufficient depth; I left the film not remembering a single characters name. And perhaps that wasn't the point; perhaps the idea behind Contagion was the widespread nature of this fear, this disease. But even then, several characters and plot lines were complete unnecessary and only hindered the film from reaching it's full potential. Kate Winslet turns in an excellent performance as Dr. Erin Mears, an Intelligence Service Officer, who is on a mission to figure out whats causing this catastrophe. Winslet is intense, and real, and the audience is with her all the way. Unfortunately, out of the dizzying amounts of people we're introduced to, she is the only one you can feel for. And that very well may be part of Contagion's cold, bleak plan: to disconnect because of fear, only drives the fear itself. Makes you wonder, what's the real pandemic going on here? B