Review – Contagion

On the surface this is a perfectly acceptable picture – at least until the plot twists take a turn for the ridiculous – about a killer plague temporarily devastating the human race. However, the problem with making a production about paranoia is that it tends to make your viewers paranoid. The more the movie encouraged me to fret about how many times a day I touch my face, the more keenly I noticed the bizarre politics of the drama. The pro-homeopathy, anti-establishment blogger is a creep and a profiteer. But then then the medical establishment gets tarred for taking too long to approve drugs, concerning itself with profits over people, and helping itself before aiding anyone else. Thus I struggled to figure out what lesson I was supposed to learn, other than “Gwyneth Paltrow makes a disturbing corpse” and “Matt Damon coveys emotion by repeating himself.” Mildly amusing