Spinning off of comments made in the podcast this morning, I liked Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion” quite a bit. It doesn’t reinvent the outbreak movie wheel per se, but it manifests a unique cross-section of characters and dissects them clinically, perhaps the film’s (and screenplay’s) biggest stroke of genius.
There isn’t a lot of heart to be found in the film, though when it peeks through, it counts. And even then, Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns aren’t concerned with lingering on it. They’re more interested in depicting a global community in crisis, dropping the players onto a Petri dish to observe — coldly — societal breakdown and human frailty.
The film pulses along (driven by precise editing by Stephen Mirrione and thumping electronic interludes by composer Cliff Martinez), rarely taking time to burrow into a character before pushing on to the next. Indeed, some threads are left dangling, handled in closing by mere suggestion. And it’s all of a piece with a film that seems determined to keep you at arm’s length — and for good reason.