Movie Review: ‘Contagion’ Directed By Steven Soderbergh - “What I Learned In This Tragedy Was the Eternal Lesson of Good People Going Bad”

Image Credit: Medium

'In order to get scared, all you have to do is to come in contact with a rumor, or the television, or the internet.' 

- Dr. Ellis Cheever (Contagion)

Review of the movie in a phrase - Movie Of The Moment (Almost A Decade Later)

Introduction

A dark black screen. The sound of an unforgettable harsh hack. We are now alert when, before long, we see a barkeeper keep a client's coin and afterwards punch numbers into a register. Germs, we're anticipating, here in the mess that is 2020. 

Movie’s Name - Contagion

Directed By - Steven Soderbergh

Genre -  Action & Adventure, Mystery and thriller/Drama

In Theater - Sep 9, 2011

Starring - Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Ehle, Bryan Cranston, John Hawkes, Elliott Gould, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sanaa Lathan

Duration - 1h 46m

At present enjoying some real success on the download and streaming diagrams, Contagion (in theatres in 2011) offers a perspective on the world in the grip of a destructive virus outbreak.

There are some uncanny similarities to our Covid circumstance, and a review may leave you with a soothing feeling of how things could work out in the months ahead. The film is an elegant-class ensemble piece, Steven Soderbergh as director, reconsidering the disaster genre of the 1970s. 

"Contagion" is a sensible, realistic, unsensational film about a worldwide pandemic. It's being advertised as a thrill ride, a startling hypothesis about how a new airborne infectious virus could enter the human species and spread steadily and relentlessly in almost no time.

The ritzy star-studded cast discover their characters associated with a progression of interlocking narrative strings, as everybody across the globe attempts to manage the mayhem, the chaos. It's definitely a go-to film for those in disengagement and isolation searching for answers or hope.

This situation is as of now natural to us through the evidently "Contagious novel Corona Virus (COVID-19)" and yearly flare-ups of flu. Relatively few of them cause as much caution and alarm as the Corona Virus did. 

The news chronology is consistently something very similar from all the past ages: alarmist maps, worldwide gatherings, the battle to deliver an antibody/vaccine at the Center for Disease Control, the manufacturing, assembling and dispersion of provisions of the current year's "influenza shot." 

Significant Message in the Movie

Image Credit: BBC

'Right now, our best defense has been social distancing. No hand shaking, staying home when you're sick, washing your hands frequently.' 

- Dr. Ellis Cheever (Contagion)

The infectious virus in "Contagion" is a confounding one, resisting segregation, defying isolation,  rejecting cure. This film by Steven Soderbergh is adept at recounting the story through the existences of several key characters and the casual interactions of numerous others.

It clarifies that individuals don't "give" each other an infection but rather an infection is a life form developed to search out new hosts as it must to endure, sustain and survive, in light of the fact that its carriers die, and it should consistently remain out one jump ahead of death.

It might be said, it is an alien species, and this is a film about an intrusion or call it invasion from inner space. 

An insight into the Cast and the Plot of the movie

The hack(cough) we hear at the start of the film is from Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow), a Minneapolis lady travelling home from Hong Kong. Before long her child passes on and she follows. Her better half, Mitch (Matt Damon), obviously resistant and immune, is incredulous that death could so unexpectedly crush his family. 

An examination reveals a mysterious visit that Beth made during a visit in Chicago—however, no, she didn't get the infection through sexual contact, the manner in which AIDS appeared to spread. 

Towards the very end of the film, Soderbergh adds a brief shot clarifying where the infection may have come from in any case, and how not many levels of separation were there between its inception and a lady from Minneapolis.

Regardless of whether this could occur in the manner Soderbergh directs is unimportant and can be kept aside; all viruses evolve from someplace, and in an age of air travel, they can easily arrive in a new city, state, country or continent in a day. 

Technical, Screenplay and Directional Aspects

The film follows the conventions of techno-spine chillers, with subtitles keeping check: Day 1, Day 3, Minneapolis, Geneva … We meet such central actors as Dr Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) of the CDC in Atlanta; Dr Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, who attempts to follow the spread with on-the-spot visits; Dr Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard), an agent from the World Health Organization in Geneva.

They have cooperated previously, are gifted, skilled work direly. Also, in a lab, there is Dr Partner Hextall (Jennifer Ehle), attempting to consummate an antibody, trying to perfect a vaccine and anxious with the time being lost before she can test it on humans. 

Logical Strategy

'Somewhere in the world the wrong pig met up with the wrong bat.'

The entirety of this fills in as dramatization. It may have been helpful if Soderbergh had clarified virus all the more unmistakably as a daily existence structure that isn't unfriendly to us(but if you're watching this film in 2021, you get the crux in the first half itself), however, worried about other life frames only as its means of survival.

Richard Dawkins laid out this interaction in his callous The Selfish Gene: From the perspective of quality, bodies are just stepping stones on their survival through all the time. 

All things considered, "Contagion" merits acclaim for treating the logical strategy appropriately when such a lot of nonsense is skimmed about in regards to immunizations and vaccines. 

One part of the film is overwhelming. Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) is a mainstream blogger with paranoid and conspiracy fears about the public authority's ties with drug organizations. His interests are dismal yet unfocused. Does he think drug organizations empower infections?

The Bottom Line

Indeed, we should regularly wash our hands. Indeed, "hand sanitizers" are everywhere nowadays. Indeed, warmly greeting outsiders can be irritating— despite the fact that they are not any more prone to convey infections than we are. Indeed, there is truly very little we can do.

You may be amazed by the number of medical clinic patients biting the dust in light of infections they didn't walk in with, but then again in the 21st century, all this may sound feeble yet horrible.

Regardless of whether that makes it too upsetting to even think about watching or a must see, that is up to you. 

Whether or not you believe you're up for a revisit, it stays a phenomenally all rounder movie, effectively one of Soderbergh's most misjudged and underrated endeavors.

My ratings for the movie - 4 on 5

Written By - Prakriti Chaudhary