Contagion

Contagion is a drama that was released in 2011, directed by Steven Soderbergh, it included many big stars, including Laurence Fishburne, who took the leading role of Dr Ellis Cheevers; Jude Law who played the role of a conspiring freelance journalist, the cast also included Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon. This film was set across the globe, but was mainly kept to the United States.

The film is based around the idea of a deadly disease that is very quickly spreading across the world; it follows the doctors trying to find a vaccine as well as a freelance journalist that believes there is a simple cure to it that the government isn’t telling the general public about, in order to save their own skin. It shows the attempts by the government to keep social order, and their miserable failure in this mission.

The acting in this film was amazing, as would be expected with such a high end cast, they definitely delivered. I think that everyone played their own roles remarkably well. I, personally, don’t like child actors, but even they performed very well. I think the best matched role was Kate Winslet to her character of Dr Erin Mears, she suited the role very well and I think it was bettered by the fact that she is British, but that is just my own personal opinion.

The editing of the film was pretty mint. I mean, the film flowed really well for the pace it was going at. Honestly, I thought the film started off really slowly, and it stayed like that for probably the first hour. When it started to get faster and more interesting though, the editing followed suit very well, the ideas that were portrayed were shown well and the editor did a great job, I was impressed.

The film was pretty good, for what it was. It had a slow start, but when it sped up I enjoyed it a lot more. There were many different ideas flying around throughout the film. When I saw the mass graves, I thought that they were reminiscent of WWII, and I found this to be a good, if not slightly depressing, reference. The film isn’t particularly gruesome, and the only scenes where I felt remotely sickened were those with the dead monkeys and Kate Winslet in a bag. My favourite part of the film was the last ten minutes, I thought Matt Damon was such a sweetie, and when they show the development of the disease the only thought that went across my mind was ‘YES!’.

I’d recommend this film to anyone that has a genuine interest in well made films, as for genre I’d say it was a medical drama, so maybe the kind of film for the people who watch House, and programmes alike. Also if you enjoyed 28 Days Later, this is definitely a must see film for you.