Contagion (2011)

A pandemic thriller made fascinating by the real-world events in the era of Covid 19. 

Matt Damon’s wife (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) contracts a mysterious virus and is quickly dead. From this initial beginning spin off a variety of threads and characters as we see the virus spread around the globe, accompanied by panic and social disorder.

The narrative perspective shifts across an ensemble cast also featuring Marion Cotillard, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle and Sanaa Lathan. Director Steven Soderbergh just about holds it all together. 

Knowing what we now know, it’s almost uncanny to watch scenes in which the “R” number is explained. It also deals with the conspiracy theorists – in this case, Jude Law, who’s told “Blogging is not writing, it’s graffiti with punctuation” – who try to scare people from taking the vaccine.

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