The fever is high Director: Steven Soderbergh Cast: Matt Damon,Gwyneth Paltrow,Kate Winslet,Jude Law,Laurence Fishburne,Marion Cotillard With swine flu just two seasons old and bird flu only a little older,an outbreak of an unknown virus that kills fast and wide is an easily comprehensible nightmare. Soderbergh gives the complete picture here: from how a virus spreads from Hong Kong to Minnesota,to Chicago and London,to China and back again; from the good guys at the Centers for Disease Control to the not-so-efficient ones at World Health Organisation; from the heroic doctors working unseen to the unheroic bloggers putting everything out there; and from the selfless volunteers helping the victims to the rioters out on streets burgling them. Soderbergh also gives you an intimate picture: of the touch,the cough and the hug that spread it,down to the convulsions with which it kills. And then just when you are settling down to see a movie about an outbreak as you havent seen before and there have been some by a director who knows how to get up close and underneath the skin,Contagion develops into a sort-of thriller without an emotional centre. Having cast a range of fine actors,Soderbergh has them distributed across the plot and his camera shuttling between them,never really settling on one long enough to make us know them or care. There is a man who has just realised his late wife was cheating on him. Cut! There is the CDC head who could be in trouble. Cut! There is a pregnant woman pushed around as riots begin for a suspected cure. Cut! There is a WHO official kidnapped in China by someone who wants first rights to any vaccine thats developed. Cut! There is a an epidemic intelligence doctor who dies while trying to figure out how to control this one. Cut! The character that Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns spend the most time on is the blogger Alan (Law),who spreads rumours and makes wild allegations about the government and even wilder claims about having found a wonder drug. Curiously then,the film never gets around to the other evil it frequently hints at: the pharmaceutical companies. Soderbergh said in an interview that he wanted those watching the film to leave the theatre scared of every cough they hear around them,thinking twice about touching any used cup. The film,in fact,has a prolonged sequence on a handshake,underlining its significance in the new scheme of things. More than scared,you leave awed not about all that you watch but never see around you,but about those microscopic beings and how they move worlds. Not necessarily your world. shalini.langer@expressindia.com
