Intrepid filmgoers are likely to come across a few pictures so incendiary that they can't help but be talked about, discussion burning up the aisles as people file out. The rarer experience, though, is to be caught in the converse: a film so basely palatable that it resists conversation almost entirely. "Contagion," in spite of an impressive directorial pedigree and a star−studded cast, is one of the latter. By favoring broad appeal over depth in storytelling, director Steven Soderbergh dials in some of his tamest work yet, though it's hidden beneath a sheen of generic prestige.
The cast — including Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard and Jude Law — is the draw here, not the story. The plot's bare bones are these: On the brink of a worldwide epidemic, viewers are given a brief window into the lives of doctors, bloggers and average citizens attempting to solve the international health crisis, exploit it for their own gain or simply keep themselves and their families alive.
Yet, somehow, Soderbergh manages to make this story less interesting in execution than it is in basic premise. It's as if he became assured of the film's imminent greatness — look at that cast — before the camera ever started rolling. For example, try your best not to groan after the third or fourth lingering shot on a handrail or doorknob. Yes, it's a prime spot for disease transmission — we get it already.
The trouble begins with its fragmented structure and builds from there. Take a film clocking in under two hours and divide it into segments that accommodate the five lead actors. Then ground that in a hyper−realistic style and pair it with a plot that hinges on medical exposition and discussing events that are happening elsewhere. The remainder is a film that constantly tells at the expense of showing.
The engine driving things forward is the disease itself, but there's an important distinction to be made between characters taking action and simply waiting for things to happen to them. It is called acting, after all, and an all−star cast hardly means anything if the potential for their characters has already been squandered on the page.
Certainly, such an approach is far truer to life than a conventional narrative world revolving night−and−day around its characters would be. But, at the same time, it makes for bland and unremarkable storytelling. This multi−person technique also precludes any measurable psychological depth, keeping the events limited to glossy chunks of surface−level characterization.
Thus, our band of actors — all of whom perform quite admirably in the limited capacity they're given — can't help but be submerged beneath these layers of didacticism, when they could have been players in a chilling portrait of human vulnerability. That, however, remains impossible, at least so long as Soderbergh gleefully cherry−picks snatches of plot to focus on at the expense of weaving a compelling atmosphere.
The director just goes for everything, and ends up with nearly nothing worthwhile in the process. It's not so much that "Contagion" is a bad film, because it isn't, but it's maddeningly safe in its execution. Even something like "The Happening" (2008) featured moments of genuine creepiness and innovative direction, in spite of its basic B−movie absurdity and general terribleness. Though without doubt an inferior film, it was, at the very least, one worth remembering.
So, the irony, then, is just how much Soderbergh's film resembles an antidote — sanitized, targeted for mass−consumption with no ill effects and, above all, pristine in its sterility.
