Contagion: People Are Scarier Than Disease

This weekend I went and saw the movie Contagion, which looked to be the first award-garnering film of the fall (yes, it’s fall now, sorry everyone).  The early buzz had said that this was a frightening movie, but I don’t think I was fully prepared for how freaky this movie would be.  It’s not scary in the traditional sense, but the realism in the science and the reactions definitely leaves you with a feeling of unease.

The cast of this movie is a true ensemble, which may hurt it come awards season.  Everyone in this, from the well-known big name actors to the random small part cameos--Demetri Martin?  What?--are all played exceptionally well.  No characters really stand out though, the movie effectively jumps between all the storylines, but none feel like the true center of the story.  The movie does do a fantastic job with its shots, making sure a minor detail is noticed, or that a scene is exceptionally eerie if that is what is called for.  The creepiest shots, which the trailers allude to, are the spaces that are normally full of people, like airports or malls, being completely empty.  There are also the typical garbage-in-the-streets shots, but I still find it hard to believe that people would start throwing away their ironing boards and dressers because there’s an epidemic going on.

The story is very focused on being real to the science and the timeline of the epidemic, and while it is effective at dumbing down some of the science, I couldn’t help but wish I knew a little more about how viruses worked while watching this movie.  I think that would have given me a better perspective of how devastating this virus truly was.  The film did make comparisons between the virus and the Spanish Flu and Smallpox, but since they didn’t know much about the new virus at the time they couldn’t really convey the exact impact of it.  The final-final ending of the movie is very cool in wrapping things up in a neat little package, but there are a lot of “final” scenes for each of the characters before you get to that, so don’t start to get up when you think the movie is over, at least the first three or four times.

Contagion is definitely a sign of the better films that will be coming this fall, but it will likely be better recognized for its story and direction than for the performances in it.  When you go to see this movie, maybe bring some hand sanitizer if you’re not a huge fan of germs, and prepare to be freaked out by everyone else in the theater as you walk out.  You will not look at someone coughing on the street the same way again.

John Hackert is a columnist and touches his face three thousand times a day.