When COVID-19 took root, you virtually knew there can be films made to money in on the panic and concern of the pandemic. They got here — of course — and the higher movies to return from that preliminary interval selected to concentrate on the human factor. Isolation, loneliness, that sort of factor. Understandably, most steered clear of tackling a straight-up pandemic story.
But then, Steven Soderbergh and author Scott Z. Burns already cooked up a chilling ode to the horrors of a killer virus almost a decade earlier. Prescient and haunting, it was little shock that folks flocked to it as soon as extra in the early days of COVID-19.
Contagion arrived on at the present time in 2011, and at the time, its science-heavy tackle the results of an airborne virus appeared fairly fanciful. Even as elements of the world had endured epidemics that generated scary headlines for the nations not actually affected by them, it nonetheless felt like a distant chance.
In Contagion, a lady returns from a enterprise journey to Hong Kong and dies from what seems to be a flu-like an infection. Then her younger son dies the identical day. However, the lady’s husband seems to be immune.
Ensemble Cast Accentuates Contagion’s Paranoia and Fear
Soderbergh makes incredible and scary use of his capability to wrangle an ensemble forged in these early moments. The movie has Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne, and Elliot Gould amongst its quantity. Soderbergh stacks the deck solely to tug off a surprising swerve with a big-name actor struggling a comparatively swift demise. There’s no higher approach to set up nobody is secure from what’s coming. Even being immune doesn’t stop individuals from struggling attributable to the surprising demise of family members.
This is our entry level at the begin of what’s going to change into a pandemic the place the airborne virus wreaks havoc. Doctors at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control quickly come to understand the extent of the virus’ attain. They scramble towards the clock to each establish and discover a remedy for the virus.
Meanwhile, the rise in circumstances worldwide causes unrest and panic on a important scale. As we all know all too properly, solutions simply can’t come shortly sufficient to cease the influence.
Soderbergh dipped into horror in his storied directorial profession, most prominently in 2018’s Unsane, and can dip wholly into it for his upcoming movie Presence. But the coldly scientific science of Contagion is probably the most masterful use of it in his filmography.
Yes, Contagion performs issues to the excessive finish of the spectrum. However, that’s precisely why it acted as a bizarre form of consolation in the early days of our real-life pandemic. The state of affairs is dangerous, however have a look at how dangerous it so simply could possibly be. The parallels between actuality and fiction have been eerily shut at the moment.
Unfortunately, life proved stranger than fiction. Reality proved it might give you its personal disturbing twist on how individuals actually act in a pandemic. Could Soderbergh have predicted anti-maskers?
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