The title Contagion may mislead many by giving away the idea of the film, but no one can expect what’s in store for them once they enter the theater. Contagion, released on September 9th, 2011, is a thriller that I recommend everyone see. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring actors such as Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, and Jude Law, this movie created a fascinating combination of many different talents . Contagion focuses on the threat of a new airborne disease that spreads hastily from one person to another. This unknown disease becomes an epidemic in the United States, and in many other countries around the world including Japan and the United Kingdom. The epidemic is merciless, causing the victims violent seizures and eventually death. It kills millions of victims in just a few days.
One of the interesting aspects of the movie was that it focused on many different people – from the family of the first woman to be struck with this illness to the doctors trying to find a cure for it. This aspect of the movie really sparked my fascination in every suspenseful event in the movie; there were many subplots, all of which wound around the central theme of the epidemic. Another interesting aspect of the movie was that there were captions throughout the movie showing how many days it had been since the disease first began. This truly emphasized how millions of lives were taken within just the first couple of weeks of the epidemic. I also liked the fact that the writers included topics that many teenagers would not normally find interesting, such as doctors’ race to find a cure for diseases, to form their plot. This gave people my age a fun and interesting way to learn about these truthful situations.
At first, while I was watching the movie, I thought that the people’s reactions to the epidemic were normal. In any society, people would be worried about the safety and well-beings of their loved ones. However, over time, as the disease traveled further and further, taking more people’s lives, the reactions became frightening. One man who came from a poorer country held a doctor hostage, only releasing her in exchange for the vaccine that the doctors were creating against the disease.
The people’s responses to the epidemic, although some a bit drastic, seemed very realistic – after all, if you were facing a worldwide epidemic, what would you do for a chance at survival?
Watch Contagion, and let this mind-twisting thriller slowly unravel, not only the reactions of the people involved with the disease, but also the source of this terrifying contagion.