Contagion | Movie Review

So I guess it was finally my time to watch this all to appropriate movie for the times that we're currently facing. There had been weeks of articles and tweets about this specific movie, around how close to reality it really was. I believe there were even scientists comparing the actions taken in the movie with those taken the past few months.

I held off for a long time, it was hard enough dealing with all the chaos and routine of this strange new normal. But just this past week, my emotions have mellowed slightly, I thought it was about time I looked at what all the fuss was about.

Healthcare professionals, government officials and everyday people find themselves in the midst of a pandemic as the CDC works to find a cure. (synopsis from IMDB)

Initial reaction...

Now, there was the fear that this would be a movie that would set my anxiety sky-rocketing seeing as we're experiencing this movie but in real-life, however I found myself really enjoying myself. It pretty much lived up to the expectations I had built up from watching the trailer and seeing clips around the internet.

From the get go, the movie sets itself up with immediate suspense and confusion surrounding the events of the film. There is nothing slow about the spread of this virus, but there is a slow reaction to containing it, much like the way the world dealt with our current pandemic.

Favourite Moments...

• Parallels to real-life: Weirdly, what I enjoyed most about the movie was how much it reflected everything we have been experiencing in the world for the past few months. As bleak as that sounds, it is what makes this movie so good, well from my point of view. Somehow watching something that mirrored our lives helped me deal with what I had been feeling. Through the movie I was able to understand more of what has been happening around the world, and empathise more with how the pandemic has affected others.
• World-wide view: Although there was a clear centre on how the virus was affecting America, it is an American film after all, but there was at least a look at how the virus was impacting the rest of the world. I'll comment on how they portrayed the virus as definitely coming from China, it started to lean towards Donald Trump rant.
• Predicting the future?.. I was interested to see how the movie looked into how the world may look once they finally found a cure for the virus. This for me was probably the most terrifying part of the movie, the brief hurrah for finding the cure, is stifled by their bizarre way of distributing it to the American public. It both appeared to be the best way to fairly pick who in the public gets the cure while also calling out a terrifying reality as to how some people may react to not getting a vaccine immediately.

Overall...

As confused and bizarre my decision to watch this movie during this tumultuous time was, I came to really enjoy watching it. Were there moments where I disagreed with the films portrayal of potential events? Of course I was, there was nothing right about how they tried to shift the focus of the virus solely on China.

There were moments when I was scared of what I watched, moreso as it only encouraged my over-active imagination to think of the worse outcome to this lock-down. At the end of the day, most likely when this is all over, I'll find myself watching this movie over again.