Both Oars In Atchoo!

Sep 16, 2011

I should have turned around and gone home when I saw that the tickets cost $10. But, I am addicted to movies, especially on the big screen with fresh popcorn. Besides, most of my trips to the States these days are scheduled so tightly that there is rarely time for a movie. Carpe Diem: I threw down my credit card and bought a ticket to Steven Soderbergh’s newest film, “Contagion.”

Big mistake.

Who would have thought that the director that brought us a heavy dose of reality on the drug war could end up delivering such a weak movie about a deadly viral outbreak? But, he did. “Contagion” is horrible. It couldn’t pass for a health department film for elementary school children on the dangers of not washing your hands.

Although “Contagion” is no “Traffic,” there are some commonalities between it and the film which won Soderbergh an Oscar for Best Director. Both films have star-packed ensemble casts. Both use a difficult relationship between a father and daughter to add emotional depth to the film. Both use incidentally intertwined lives to suggest that we are getting a peek behind fate’s curtain.

The difference is that “Traffic” actually succeeds in teaching us something. “Contagion” provides no new insights. The script is on par with an infomercial and the acting is not much better. At best, Soderbergh will receive a merit badge for community service for this film.  

Matt Damon’s performance is especially poor in this film. He often seems to be channeling Jethro from “The Beverly Hillbillies.” His wife, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, is of the new genre of successful, pretty, but shallow female executives who make cuckolds of their slower-witted husbands. Sadly, Damon’s acting, as bad as it is, is better than Paltrow’s performance. Her posthumous appearance in still photos is her best work in the film.

In Damon’s defense, the real culprit of the bad acting may be the movie’s screenwriter, who actually wrote a scene where a sane man, who just rode to the hospital in an ambulance with his wife who is convulsing and foaming at the mouth, misunderstands the doctor when he is told that his wife is dead.

The scene is torturous to watch. 

Unfortunately, I have had the responsibility on more than one occasion to inform a person, totally out of the blue, that a sibling or a family member has died. I have never once had the person miss the point. The emotional immaturity and kitschy-ness of the interaction between Damon and the doctor is downright insulting. Damon’s clumsy handling of this scene will undoubtedly haunt his career forever.
 
It is not only the sophomoric interaction of the characters that undermines the film - The actual events of the film do not make sense. It is hard to understand how an epidemic can be severe enough to kill millions of people, cause grocery stores to be emptied and lead to the murder of people in their suburban homes, yet there is no impact on the electrical power supply or on cell phone use. What hope is there for teenage parents if even something on the scale of the Black Plague cannot deter teenagers from compulsive texting?

We are led to believe that the social fabric of the country has unraveled as Matt Damon’s character and his daughter take a lions-tigers-and-bears-oh-no ride around town. Seeing a storefront on fire, the  daughter asks ominously, “Where is the fire department?” Matt Damon’s character even feels insecure enough to go looking for a shotgun. Yet, when father and daughter arrive home, she plops down to text her boyfriend on an immaculate bed with crisp color-coordinated pillow cases and a matching comforter. Evidently, Tide has stayed in ample supply.

The dramatic reality of this movie is mesmerizing—not.   

Epidemics, their death toll and the fear they can cause are nothing to sneeze at. I know that from experience. Although not millions, cholera has killed too many in Haiti. However, this movie is such a farce that it cannot be taken seriously or even enjoyed as a distraction. See “The Debt;” I wish I had.  

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