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CONTAGION |  any movie that kills off Gwyneth Paltrow in the first 10 minutes gets my vote

Notes on Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion:

1. Any movie that kills off Gwyneth Paltrow in the first 10 minutes gets my vote. The script loses points for making her an adulterous wife, ie, she has to die = melodrama cliche.

2. Jennifer Ehle has a unique capacity for embodying empathy and sympathy on-screen. You never question any choice or decision her character makes, including self-testing a vaccine for the ghastly pandemic disease.

3. Jude Law nails the role of the self-serving blogger who combines the creepiest elements of Julian Assange, Jenny McCarthy and Suzanne Somers.

4. Steven Soderbergh litters the movie with red herrings as it moves around the world in what feels like real time. Relentless pacing keeps you involved all the way through until the disease peters out at the end, which feels true to how such things actually happen (after, of course, sowing endless havoc).

“In its dystopian vision of a present calamitously infected by fear, paranoia, self-interest and the denial of science, this movie is certainly of the moment even if it also evokes the past.” | Manohla Dargis | NY Times | September 8, 2011

CONTAGION |  any movie that kills off Gwyneth Paltrow in the first 10 minutes gets my vote