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Contagion Movie Review

Contagion is a 2011 disaster thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburn, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Winslet. It’s such a good, realistic film.

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“Blogging is not writing.

It’s graffiti with punctuation“

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It follows the spread of a virus and everything that escalates from it – the attempts by researches to stop it, the loss of social order, the researching for the vaccine etc. The film is so grounded in reality that that becomes its biggest accomplishment. It is by far one of the best disaster films of all time as it deals with a genuinely realistic catastrophe that is rooted in genuine science, medicine and social implications.

The loss of social order part to the film is your typical SF scenario that was less interesting to me, but the politics behind it were so well explored from those who want to profit out of it to those who would make some unfortunate, selfish choices in regards to their families’ safety coming first. I found the thriller elements to be the best, especially in the first act when they raced to find patient zero. Those sequences were so intense and very interesting.

The film benefits from such a strong, star-studded cast. In its ensemble, it obviously sought to emulate the famous disaster flicks of the seventies, but it took only that aspect of those and mixed them with a more mature screenplay, which was a terrific choice.

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I found everyone excellent here, each and every performer. Probably my favorite was Kate Winslet whose character is so heroic and easy to root for. Her scenes in the first act are the best of the bunch. Marion Cotillard and Laurence Fishburn are both strong as well, in particular his complex character is quite memorable.

I also really liked Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow, although I did not find the cheating subplot to be fitting for this movie at all. It felt too personal of a problem in a film that deals with the global pandemic. The patient zero subplot is great, but again Damon’s subplot felt unnecessary. Jude Law himself is perfectly cast as this awful person who is out to capitalize on the virus. All of these actors are very well cast, mostly well utilized and for the most part surprisingly well developed for what are not that big roles.

Contagion is also very well edited and paced, though I clearly found the third act to be the best one, followed by the second one, and then the third act is by far the weakest. However, that final sequence that portrays how the first case of the virus came to be was absolutely fantastic and a great example of a film managing to teach you about a certain subject matter.

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The flick does have that scientific, medicinal edge to it that makes it incredibly relevant whenever a new virus emerges. Although some of its plot points, mostly those with Cotillard’s character, felt unrealistic, others mostly felt stupendously real. It works both as a thriller and as a disaster flick. Though messy and uneven at times in terms of the structure obviously as it tries to cover multiple characters and grounds, I still found its tackling of this subject excellent. The score is also very intense and Soderbergh’s direction is strong, being one of his best films.

Contagion is definitely uneven and at times messy in its structure as it tries to cover multiple characters and grounds, but it mostly succeeds at portraying the spread of a virus and everything that such situation pertains – medically, socially, politically and economically. The score and direction are strong, the thriller elements are superb and quite intense, plus the performances from its terrific ensemble cast are uniformly strong. It’s one of the best disaster films out there.

My Rating – 4

You can get this ever-relevant movie on Amazon for a very small price.