Big Screen Peter: Contagion

review by Peter Lewis

If you are even remotely prone to paranoia, “Contagion” is probably a movie to avoid.

The film, which boasts a plethora of A-List actors, details the ravaging possibilities presented by a super virus strain. Think H1N1 or West Nile on steroids. Better yet, think pre-vaccine Polio or the Spanish influenza of 1918 to a factor of 10 or more.

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, “Contagion” is a sobering dose of reality laced with a healthy strain of paranoia. It’s scope is global, bouncing from city to city around the world as it picks up fleeting strands of a story in an attempt to illustrate a larger narrative: the decimation of a significant chunk of the earth’s population.

The story begins on Day 2 of the outbreak. It’s concentrated around just a few people, but those few people have since scattered from Hong Kong and out into the larger world. From London and Tokyo to Minneapolis, the affected circle grows and grows. The story that grows out of this outbreak is one of control and terror, as governmental organizations struggle not only to ascertain what the virus is, but on how to combat it and inform the population without inciting panic.

“Contagion” is a thriller, so these attempts break down and a lawlessness ensues. Nurses strike, heretofore “normal” people begin looting pharmacies and grocery stores.  Society grinds to a halt as streets empty and people bunker themselves against the wider world.

By jumping from health officials to government workers to activist bloggers to “normal” life, Soderbergh attempts to bring the movie a sense of realism and immediacy. It’s nothing short of a monumental task for Soderbergh, a director who is no stranger to this thread based approach to story telling (“Traffic,” the Ocean’s franchise).

And the failure of the film isn’t the overextension of covering the contagion on a global scale, but the attempt to wed such a dystopian, terrestrial reality with a humanistic triumph.

Soderbergh’s illustration of these small acts of kindness somehow seem displaced within such a Sherman’esque wasteland. Humanity isn’t hard to fathom in the face of depravity. Yet, the disparate focus of the film punctuates these acts in a way that makes them feel removed from the narrative itself. It’s a paradox: Soderbergh seeks to portray the possibility of a contagion on a global scale, yet as an audience, investing in the characters is never possible with such a fleeting, worldwide view. Their plight, though objectively tragic, never achieves anything resembling immediacy.

Though it seeks to illustrate much, “Contagion” ends up showing nothing more than a sad, broken possibility of our future. Filmmakers should never shy away from such things, but with such shattered possibilities already prevailing across the globe, it fails to even offer anything provocative.

It’s a calculated, clinical look at a very disturbing possibility for our future. Such hyper-realism, though sobering, thought provoking, and even well executed, can never find a bridge into societal consciousness.

• Contagion is playing at the Carmike 14 and the Malco Cinema 12 in Fort Smith, and the Malco Van Buren Cinema. Link here for time and ticket info.

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