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movie review - Contagion

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This is an interesting piece about some potential ramifications from a pandemic. In the early sequences of the movie we see an American woman meet a man for a casual fling before returning to her married life in the US. Along the way she eats at a restaurant where she picks up the virus.

Various stories unfold, and we explore ideas from securities fraud to a prom dance.

I found quite a few of the characters hard to like, and therefor found them less sympathetic that I might expect from a Hollywood effort - but this is a good thing. It's not exactly an apocalyptic story, and I think that help it ground its message for us. Ten years after SARS, and with MERS a major catastrophe we somehow averted, I think everyone should get this message: we are susceptible and we aren't prepared.

Strong recommended.

P.S. I really liked the explanatory scene at the end when we learn how the virus started with bats, then passed onto livestock, and then entered that restaurant where our philandering American met her fate and doomed entire populations across the world.