Contagion

3*** stars

Dir: Steven Soderburgh (SS)

Finally, a horror movie for germa-a-phobes!

 

Released in early fall -- no doubt timed to coincide with the start of another flu season -- Contagion is designed to freak-out even the most casual of handwashers. For the more serious hand-sanitizer-junkies among us, this movie is a cautionary tale about how a virus can go 'viral' -- effectively tracking a disease from its origin in Asia to its seemingly easy and rapid-fire transmission to reach world-wide pandemic status.  Every time the camera lingers, ever so briefly, on a doorknob, a subway railing, credit card or pen that changes hands, will send a shiver up your spine -- even a bowl of bar peanuts takes on a new menace when it is filmed in close proximity to an obviously ill Gwyneth Paltrow (she looks terrible, too -- all red-faced and sniffling -- kudos for taking the unglamorous* role).

• * That is putting it mildly, as the movie charts her character's fate in grim detail. I should let you vote on which Hollywood beauty suffers the worse, more-abrupt fate in movies this year: Ms. Paltrow or Christina Hendricks in Drive.

SS assembles a cast worthy of an "Ocean's 14" movie, only he uses them for a higher purpose. Matt Damon is good as Gwyneth's husband. Kate Winslet is also aboard, as a CDC investigator sent to godawful Minnesota (at least that's how the state is portrayed by SS, complete with snow and bitchy bureaucrats).

As he did so effectively in exposing the multitude of effects of the world-wide drug trade in "Traffic" (the gripping 200- Oscar winner), SS intercuts between several different storylines across the globe to detail the numerous agencies involved in identifying, then trying to contain, a public health threat of this magnitude. This device is less effective here, mainly because so many of the stories followed here are under-developed or half-baked. Jude Law makes a valiant effort to infuse some life into his character, but his story seems too contrived. That description goes double for the Marion Cotillard subplot -- she plays a WHO official sent to China to investigate the origin of the epidemic, and is caught in a ludicrous plot device. (She disappears for a large chunk of the movie, so it is hard to care about her fate, or understand her actions). SS is obviously more interested in the head of the CDC (an imposing Laurence Fishburne) and the team of scientists who franticly attempt to isolate the strain, then develop a vaccine -- lead by the riveting Jennifer Ehle, in another unglamorous role.

As I left the screening, passing by the ubiquitous racks of 3D glasses next to the ticket-taker, I thought of an effective way to market Contagion: every ticket holder gets a surgical mask and travel-size bottle of Purex. I would certainly use mine!