Contagion

Stop touching your face! Quit that uncovered coughing! Limit your social interactions! The message is clear in Steven Soderbergh's gripping pandemic drama Contagion, but paranoia isn't the only thing in the air. There's a virus, too, and all we know about it is that it has something to do with pigs and bats. Well, that and it kills people at such a furious rate that human beings might as well start planning for the apocalypse. Apparently, the wrong pig and the wrong bat make a pretty nasty combo, but their pairing doubles as a delightfully sinister narrative hook. It might just be the end of the world and Soderbergh takes a multi-faceted approach to the global conflict, employing several engaging plot threads that intersect rather skillfully with contagious conviction.

There's the loving husband and father (Matt Damon), whose wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns home from a business trip in Hong Kong, where she seems to have come down with some unfortunate flu. Or something. Whatever it is, she's soon convulsing on her kitchen floor, foaming at the mouth and giving her husband no choice but to rush her to the hospital. And then she's dead, relegated to a statistic that places her at the top spot on a suddenly growing list of infected citizens. Sick people start showing up in all sorts of cities, including London and Chicago. The virus is spreading rapidly and optimism is in short supply.

As a suffocating sense of dread settles over the movie, we are introduced to plot lines that involve a CDC official (Laurence Fishburne) struggling to form a game plan in the wake of this disastrous outbreak, a scientist (Jennifer Ehle) tasked with studying the virus in hopes of forming a vaccine, a blogger (Jude Law) fueled by conspiracy theories, an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer (Kate Winslet) hired to investigate the virus while making preparations for the inevitable patient overrun, and an epidemiologist (Marion Cotillard) working with the WHO to pinpoint the origin of the virus.

It's a tangled web of character arcs and carefully plotted progression, but Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns are so focused on the big picture that no thread feels unnecessarily highlighted or unjustly ignored. Each character has a purpose and the kaleidoscopic shifting of perspective is deftly handled, a careful product of sharp writing and precise editing. The constant changes in location (the movie takes place in over a half-dozen cities) and the need to reposition the dramatic lens to fit epic struggles at the CDC level or intimate ones at the family level are successful at widening the scope of the conflict and giving us reasons to fear the virus at all corners of the narrative.

Adding a unique chilliness to the movie, Soderbergh and Burns choose to eschew saccharine silliness in favour of adopting a more clinical approach that allows for social and psychological dissection. Even Damon's storyline, complete with a suddenly single father facing widowhood, isn't played as a tearjerker, but rather as a fragile portrait of suburban loss. This plotline is as intimate as Contagion ever gets, so it's a testament to how disciplined Soderbergh's direction is that the scenes with Damon's character and his adolescent daughter (Anna Jacoby-Heron) are more interested in authentic emotions than in blatant heartstring tugging.

There are no easy emotions here. Well, except for fear. That one's tough to avoid as Soderbergh's sickly colour palette paints a picture of enveloping disease. His penchant for yellow lighting is a bit vomitous, but it makes sense here and it allows the virus to invade the frame independent of human hosts. Eventually, everything looks more than a little disgusting and the virus appears to have us visually surrounded.

Soderbergh, who doubles as the cinematographer, deepens the fear through a morose mixture of wide shots and close-ups. He enjoys giving us glimpses of abandoned buildings and city streets drowning in garbage and he even acknowledges some trenches dug for the purpose of burying corpses in body bags, but he also shoves the camera in the faces of infected people and plants the seeds of paranoia with multiple shots showcasing where people's hands have lingered. His attempts to draw our attention to such seemingly minor details as drink glasses or handrails on buses are apparent without being obnoxiously obvious. It's difficult to shake the fear of usually innocuous actions and objects becoming viral transmitters of potentially fatal proportions.

Cold and oh so calculated, fresh and yet nearly frozen, Contagion is a devilish doomsday drama where all of the pieces fit tightly together. The stunning and sprawling cast does not disappoint, as every character attains believability and each actor makes the most of their screen time. It's pointless to even single out any standout performances because each one brings so much to the movie and none of the major roles are overshadowed by another. Soderbergh has worked with large casts in the past, but rarely has he been so successful at extracting an equal slate of top-notch performances. He puts each performance to work in servicing a narrative that oozes originality through tone and structure. Another highlight is delivered by composer Cliff Martinez, whose pounding score provides the musical equivalent of the onscreen paranoia. Contagion is a flavourful concoction, an end of the world scenario more interested in recognizing the inevitable than in revealing a simple answer. It offers an apocalyptic vision of grim grace that suggests all of our everyday touching of objects is a pretty creepy exercise. Soderbergh has me convinced. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash my hands.