Film Review: Contagion

DVD: Contagion   9/10
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne

Plot: a medical thriller surrounding a deadly outbreak of a killer disease and how a team of worldwide doctors try to stop it.

2012 and The Day After Tomorrow all did well at the box office, they proved to worry audiences by presenting large set pieces of major cities blowing up with sky scrapers falling to the ground and couples crying as they spend their last few moments together… BOO HOOO! Contagion, finally, is a disaster that is both believable and terrifying… the deserted streets are extremely disturbing as well as the lack of body bags for those who have died from the disease. Soderbergh, at last, has captured the human side to a worldwide disaster. There’s no world leaders running around shouting ‘there’s no hope’, there’s no stereotypes of divorced parents reuniting as the world ends (2012) and there is certainly not much action in the film.

The scenes located in small rooms; filled with health officials discussing the spreading of disease, becomes extremely claustrophobic and frightening and shows how real scientists, humane ones, would react to a worldwide disaster. You can tell that the writers spent time heavily researching how scientists deal with the control of disease, which they did, and it has been praised by audiences and critics alike for its realness.

The film, also, is extremely disjointed, strangely though, whilst this would usually be annoying, it gives way for plenty of stories to coincide with one another, allowing each situation to unravel before our eyes. It’s a shame, however, that many loose ends remain when the film ends, which it does abruptly, yet the writing is done to top notch effect and the trailers, honestly, do not show the best bits. Whilst disease ridden people and the virus attacking the human body is thrilling, the moments of speech and political dealings are far more rewarding, and this film is truly a thriller and shouldn’t be classed as it was marked, which was a zombie-like horror.

In conclusion: Contagion stands against previous disaster films with pride, with fantastic performances from Jude Law (though a dodgy accent), Kate Winslet and Matt Damon. For once, action isn’t what’s needed to make a great disaster film, a bunch of scientists and close-ups of germs do it perfectly instead.