Contagion

Infectious thriller: In 'Contagion,' a star-studded cast races to stop the spread of a deadly virus

A scene from the Steven Soderbergh-directed “Contagion.’’ (Claudette Barius/Warner Brothers Pictures)

By Wesley Morris Globe Staff / September 9, 2011

Steven Soderbergh has said that he’s a movie or two away from retirement. He’s only 48, but he wants to paint. This sounds serious, and even if he’s only half-kidding, it raises a major question. Do we want to continue to support an industry that bores an entertainer with as much to offer as Soderbergh?

Photos

Sick health flicks: Outbreaks on film

The new flick got us thinking about other pandemic movies that Hollywood has produced over the years.

CONTAGION
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Written by: Scott Z. Burns
Starring: Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, and Gwyneth Paltrow
At: Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs, Jordan’s IMAX
in Reading
Running time: 108 minutes
R (some language, widespread panic, and disturbing images, including the surgical removing of an Oscar winner’s scalp)

It’s true that what he offers tends to run wider than it runs deep, but addictive contraptions like “Contagion’’ are the sort of gleaming amusements that it’s easy to take for granted even though they come along only when filmmakers like Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan, and, to some extent, David Fincher, make them.

As a filmmaker Soderbergh requires nothing more of us than a willingness to enjoy ourselves. He had fun. Why shouldn’t we? With “Contagion,’’ the fun begins with a cough. A black screen cuts to the words “Day 2’’ and Gwyneth Paltrow’s raw-looking visage. She’s a businesswoman hacking her way through a romantic phone call in a Chicago airport. Not much later, she’s back home in Minnesota with her husband, Mitch (Matt Damon), and son, looking like death. She had been whooping it up with clients in a Hong Kong casino. Now, she’s just whooping and foaming at the mouth. The news at the hospital isn’t good, and eventually the news on the news is worse. Lots of people in lots of cities are dying of something - it’s not SARS, H1N1, or bird flu.

This setup takes about 40 minutes, and there are so many things to love about it: the shameless pan down to a seemingly harmless bowl of peanuts that Paltrow had been picking at; the way a Hollywood piñata suddenly releases stars like Jude Law as a medical-conspiracy blogger and, playing epidemiologists, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, and Laurence Fishburne to spread the plot around the world; the fantastic under-card actors like Elliott Gould, Bryan Cranston, John Hawkes, Sanaa Lathan, Enrico Colantoni, Demetri Martin’s haircut, and the great Jennifer Ehle, whom I could listen to talk about “viral receptor proteins’’ for the rest of my life; the fact that an entire movie is a kind of joke whose punch line is “Gwyneth Paltrow makes the whole world sick.’’ I don’t know what this woman has done to win the schadenfreude of so many, but Soderbergh has turned her into a 21st-century Veronica Cartwright. When two doctors in protective gear stand over Paltrow, they can’t believe their eyes.

“Oh my God.’’

“Should I take a sample?’’

“I want you to step away from the table.’’

“Should I call someone?’’

“You should call everyone.’’

We don’t see what they see, but my guess is it’s the finale of “Country Strong.’’ Paltrow doesn’t get to go quite as bananas as Cartwright in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers’’ or “The Witches of Eastwick,’’ but she’s at least in enough on the gag to deserve the prize for good sportsmanship that she should have won for “Se7en.’’ Most of the glamour goes to Cotillard, who spends the movie in expensive-looking fabrics worn on behalf of the World Health Organization.Continued...