Contagion

Director: Stephen Soderberg
Producer: Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher, Gregory Jacobs
Writer: Scott. Z. Burns

Matt Damon as Mitch Emhoff
Kate Winslet as Dr. Erin Mears
Jude Law as Alan Krumwiede
Marion Cotillard as Dr. Leonora Orantes
Laurence Fishbourne as Dr. Ellis Cheever
Gwyneth Paltrow as Beth Emhoff

Contagion is a Medical/Distaster thriller dealing with one of mankind's biggest fears: Disease.  Beth Emhoff arrives home from a trip to Hong Kong. Two days later, she is dead in the emergency room. Her husband, Mitch Emhoff, rushes home once he learns his step-son has contracted the same symptoms. When he arrives home, he is dead. This starts off a chain reaction of infection. Everyone who comes into contact with the unknown disease is afflicted and dies within a day. The disease spreads fast and it doesn't take long before thoughts of conspiracy come forth. Krumwiede is the centre of these thoughts, telling the public that the disease is curable, but the CDC (centre for disease control) and the government are making money off of this epidemic.

The film follows the lives of quite a few individuals in the same time space as one another, there is no antagonist or protagonist.  I love that this film was done much in the play of a theatre production, it had the feel of an ensemble cast. Every character had the same amount of screen time. The actors did a great job in portraying characters that are in an extremely tense and frightening environment. Jude Laws accent was a little strange, it almost sounded like he was trying to sound Australian, but he kept going in and out of accent. I haven't watched many movies with Law in them, so maybe thats just how he speaks, I'll watch another movie of his and see. Winslet, I felt, was the true stand out in this film. Her character was strong, yet scared and unsure. Which, I would imagine, would be a tough thing to portray. The audience feel safe with her, We trust her. All to have the trust taken from us, which was quite a shock for me... In a way that I will not say, you'll have to find out for yourselves. The character the general audience would connect with would be Damon's sad widower character. Having his family ripped away from him in such an awful way. And yet, I wish I could have seen more hurt, more despair in Damon's portrayl. I felt it too robotic, which could work for some, but it didn't work on Damon.

I did find this film to lack action. I do realise that this was done on purpose to make the film more dangerous and real. I wish I had more of a sense of nervousness, if you follow me. The feeling you get in your gut when you're not sure how this is going to end. I kind of guessed from the start how it would end.
Contagion is a throughly entertaining film, great for a quite night in. But I would not call this ground-breaking cinema. The plot is unoriginal, but is still compelling and interesting. The acting is mediocre from most, but still believable enough. Im giving it 3 stars