Contagion: Wrong Bat . . . Wrong Pig
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Contagion: The Movie
How quickly society can break down
Contagion is a story of an airborne virus that kills within days. A woman is on her way back to Minneapolis from Hong Kong. While waiting for her connecting flight in Chicago she starts to cough, two days later she is dead, so is a Casino worker in Hong Kong, a Japanese businessman in Tokyo and a London Model.
The Steven Soderbergh directed film, has docudrama style titling, “Day 1” . . . “Day 2” . . . etc. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta take center stage along with the Department of Homeland Security, who think it could be a bio-weapon.
An investigator for the CDC tells administrators,The average person touches his or her face between 2,000 and 3,000 times a day. We all use our hands to touch the same objects, doors, chairs, and tables as do most people in a typical day. Our habits guarantee the easy spread of germs.
A CDC scientists decides after testing the virus in a lab: “Somewhere in the world, the wrong bat met up with the wrong pig.” The hunt for a vaccine intensifies, but who will get it first?
In a sub-plot, a blogger starts getting millions of hits a day as he claims to have a cure. Hedge Fund managers tap him up wanting to know what product to invest in. Greed, fraud and fear become bedfellows.
It is a pandemic, but story stays in the US. We see no politicians, just the CDC specialists going about their almost impossible task. By “Day 10” States have shut down travel in or out, and so have large urban areas. Looting is widespread as food and water run out. In less than two weeks panic is spreading faster than the virus. Millions are dead and dying. Society is on its knees.
NO SPOILER – How does it end? Go see it. I found it a very interesting movie and I can’t imagine a real life pandemic would be any different than the one portrayed in Contagion.
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Also No Spoiler- Extortion sub-plot was interesting. Yep, that would probably happen.
Only comic relief- the man holding the door for his family as they left the theater, quickly let the door go and rubbed his hands furiously on his jeans.
I washed my hands as soon as I got home.