Steven Soderbergh is a busy man. He turns out films at an alarming rate and several of them are great. Solaris, Erin Brockovich, and the Ocean’s Eleven reboot come to mind. That being said, he has also delivered his fair share of mediocrity over his twenty-plus year career. Unfortunately, his most recent effort, Contagion, falls into the latter category as it fails to deliver a satisfying climax to what could have been one of the most affecting films of the year.
His name and reputation enabled him to round up a cast of enormous talent and the performances are the only outstanding quality worth noting. The ensemble did a fantastic job of portraying characters on all sides of the viral outbreak including Matt Damon as a husband grieving over his dead wife (Gwyneth Paltrow), Laurence Fishburne and Kate Winslet as CDC Operatives who are attempting to halt the spread of the disease, Marion Cotillard as a WHO Officer who is held captive by people seeking a cure, and Jude Law as a conniving blogger who does his best to spread the truth about the virus that the government seems to be covering up. There are several smaller roles played by some great actors that you’ll be surprised to see including John Hawkes, Brian Cranston, and even comedian Demetri Martin.
Outside of the superb acting, Contagion seems realistic to the point where a lot of the drama and tension is stripped and it comes off as almost documentary. I know Soderbergh typically employs this sense of realism in a lot of his work, but the premise for Contagion and the caliber of acting talent he recruited seemed to lend itself to a much more produced and dramatic feel that definitely was not present. In the end, there were no twists and it basically was just a straight forward telling of what would happen in the case of a viral outbreak. It left me wanting more and a bit disappointed because I thought it had a lot of promise. Despite its shortcomings, Contagion is worth a watch for the performances, the small cameos, and the degree in which it describes the details of viruses, the process of determining cause, and how the public and private sectors work together to develop a cure.
Cinenigmatic: A Film Review Blog 