Contagion (2011)

Contagion - 2011

Coming up next is 2011's "Contagion", a film that eerily mirrors the events of today's COVID-19 pandemic.  (By the way, this film has no opening credits).  In this film, the world shuts down after a respiratory illness is found to be highly contagious and deadly.

The film's cast includes Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, Jennifer Ehle, Elliott Gould, Sanaa Lathan, and Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

A disease is coming out of Macau.  This disease is unknown to scientists and the medical community.  They are at a complete loss as to be able to combat this deadly and highly contagious disease.

Schools begin to close.  Students are sent home in the wake of the deaths of 3 students and the school nurse.

Funeral homes are unwilling to hold services for people that died of this mysterious disease.  The families left behind are left to grieve in a new way.

Sports centers are turned into hospitals to help with the overwhelming onslaught of new medical cases.

Anxiety and terror reign supreme as the supermarket shelves are emptied and general pandemonium runs rampant through the populace.

Those in authority encourage "social distancing" (a term actually used in this film), which includes not shaking hands, staying home when sick, and other preventative measures.

And high school seniors are forced to be inventive in the way they celebrate things that would normally be done with their classmates, including prom.  Sound like today?  When watching this film, it's scary to see the parallels.

Our cast includes Dr. Erin Mears, whose work on the ground includes finding out about the day to day of this disease and the way to educate the public about it.  Dr. Mears says, "The average person touches their face two or three thousand times a day. Three to five times every waking minute.  In between, we're touching doorknobs, water fountains, elevator buttons, and each other."

Dr. Ellis Cheever and Dr. Ally Hextall are busy in the lab researching the disease and how to come up with a way to test it for weakness and ultimately a vaccine.

Mitch Emhoff is the husband of the first patient to have the disease.  He's immune to it, and he must keep his teenage daughter safe at all costs.

Dr. Leonora Orantes works with the WHO, and it's her job to find out just how the disease began.  She's later kidnapped by a government official who wants her help with his village.

Alan Krumwiede is a conspiracy theorist and an anti-government journalist.  His reports cause hysteria among citizens anxious to believe the worst about their government.

Eventually, Dr. Ally Hextall is able to find a way to grow the virus securely and treat it.  The monkey she tests it on lives, and she creates a vaccine that saves millions of lives.  However, the vaccine is distributed by lottery using birthdates.

We eventually find out how the disease came about.  An infected bat dropped a banana into a pig enclosure.  One of the pigs ate it.  The pig was killed and prepared at a Macau casino.  The chef (while preparing the pig) was called out to greet Beth Emhoff.  He wipes his hands on his apron and then shakes her hands while smiling for the camera.

Cast rundown:

   Matt Damon....................................Mitch Emhoff

   Gwyneth Paltrow..............................Beth Emhoff

   Kate Winslet....................................Dr. Erin Mears

   Marion Cotillard...............................Dr. Leonora Orantes

   Jude Law........................................Alan Krumwiede

   Laurence Fishburne..........................Dr. Ellis Cheever

   Jennifer Ehle...................................Dr. Ally Hextall

   Elliott Gould....................................Dr. Ian Sussman

   Sanaa Lathan..................................Aubrey Cheever

   Dr. Sanjay Gupta.............................Himself

And that's all for Contagion.  In 2020, this film received renewed popularity and interest for its resemblance to the COVID-19 pandemic.  It became the 7th most popular film on iTunes.  During one period, HBO reported that the film was their most viewed film for two weeks straight.

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