CONTAGION: a disaster movie not to be sneezed at

Remember all the fuss and fearmongering over the SARS and H1N1 viruses? For a time health authorities around the world had us believing we could all catch a potentially deadly strain of flu from birds and/or pigs. Well that all passed with the vast majority of us remaining healthy and we rapidly forgot about the importance of covering our mouth when sneezing or coughing, and making regular use of hand sanitizer.

CONTAGION is a timely reminder that we shouldn't become complacent. We dodged the bullet with SARS and H1N1 but the threat is real and it's out there somewhere, just waiting to unleash itself upon us again.
Director Steven Soderbergh's tense and tightly woven story charts the spread of a new and deadly strain of a flu-like disease, from its' initial infection of the first human (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) to the death of millions across the globe in a matter of days. It's the speed with which the infection spreads which is most frightening. Scientists Laurence Fishburne and Kate Winslet from the Centers for Disease Control spell out to disbelieving government officials the scale of the epidemic with impressive calmness, making it clear that drastic action is required immediately to prevent the deaths of untold millions.
Simultaneous with the spread of the disease CONTAGION also examines the power of the internet to spread rumours at an equal speed. Jude Law plays an influential San Francisco blogger who insists that the authorities desperate search for a vaccine is a government hoax and that they are suppressing supplies of the real cure for economic and political reasons.
As befits the scale of the story Soderbergh pulls in a veritable army of characters from around the world and this is both a plus point and a weakness. The diverse collection of players and nationalities adds credibility but the film's 1 hour 45 minute running time doesn't allow time for us to get to know these people properly or fully explore each of their stories. 106 minutes is barely time to scratch the surface of such an epic issue so the film resorts to using representative characters - Fishburne is the US government representative, Marion Cotillard is the World Health Organisation, Law is the opposition to the official effort, Matt Damon is the general public losing loved ones to the disease, Elliott Gould is the scientific research community etc. In some cases the camera lingers on them long enough that they're allowed to develop a personality but with others we meet them for only as long as it takes for them to perform their function in the story.
CONTAGION would have benefited from a longer running time allowing for a more in-depth exploration of the handling of such a crisis and a more satisfactory resolution to it. As it currently stands the ending arrives almost as quickly as the disease initially spreads leaving a sense of having been rushed through a highlights-only version of a modern day pandemic to get to the happy ending before we've had time to become seriously scared by what we're seeing. But given the brief attention span of many of today's younger film goers perhaps that's inevitable if the film is to be successful in imparting its' message.