Contagion (2011 film)

Contagion is a 2011 American medical thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh. Its ensemble cast includes Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, and Gwyneth Paltrow. The plot concerns the spread of a highly contagious virus transmitted through respiratory droplets and fomites, attempts by medical researchers and public health officials to identify and contain the disease, the loss of social order as the virus turns into a worldwide pandemic, and the introduction of a vaccine to halt its spread. To follow several interacting plot lines, the film makes use of the multi-narrative "hyperlink cinema" style, popularized in several of Soderbergh's films. The film was inspired by real-life outbreaks such as the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak and the 2009 flu pandemic.

Following their collaboration on The Informant! (2009), Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns discussed a film depicting the rapid spread of a virus. Burns consulted with representatives of the World Health Organization as well as medical experts such as W. Ian Lipkin and Larry Brilliant. Principal photography started in Hong Kong in September 2010, and continued in Chicago, Atlanta, London, Dublin, Geneva, and San Francisco Bay Area until February 2011.

Contagion premiered at the 68th Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2011, and was theatrically released by Warner Bros. Pictures on September 9, 2011. Commercially, the film made $136.5 million against its $60 million production budget. Critics praised it for its narrative and the performances, as did scientists for its accuracy. The film received renewed popularity in 2020 due to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Plot

Returning from a Hong Kong business trip, Beth Emhoff meets up with a former lover during a Chicago layover. She feels slightly ill; two days later, back home in Minneapolis, she suffers a seizure and dies from an unknown illness. Her 6-year-old son, Clark, also dies. Beth's husband, Mitch, is isolated but found to be naturally immune. After being released, he quarantines his teenage daughter, Jory, at home.

In Atlanta, Department of Homeland Security representatives meet with Dr. Ellis Cheever of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over concerns that the disease may be a bioweapon. He dispatches Dr. Erin Mears, an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, to Minneapolis, where she traces everyone having had contact with Beth. She negotiates with reluctant local bureaucrats to commit resources for a public health response. Later, Mears becomes infected and dies, and is buried in a mass grave. As the novel virus spreads, citywide quarantine orders cause panic buying, widespread looting, and violence.

At the CDC, Dr. Ally Hextall determines the virus is a combination of genetic material from pig and bat-borne viruses. Scientists are unable to discover a cell culture to grow the newly identified MEV-1 (Meningoencephalitis Virus 1). Cheever determines the virus too virulent to be researched at Biosafety level (BSL) 3 laboratories and restricts all work to BSL 4 labs only. Hextall orders University of California, San Francisco researcher Dr. Ian Sussman to destroy his samples. Believing he is close to finding a viable cell culture, Sussman secretly continues his research and identifies a usable cell culture from which Hextall develops a vaccine. Scientists determine MEV-1 is spread by respiratory droplets and fomites, with a basic reproduction number of four when the virus mutates; they project that 1 in 12 people on Earth will be infected, with a 25–30% mortality rate.

Conspiracy theorist Alan Krumwiede claims he cured himself of the virus using a homeopathic cure derived from forsythia. People seeking forsythia violently overwhelm pharmacies. Krumwiede, having faked being infected to boost forsythia sales, is arrested for conspiracy and securities fraud, though his fanbase immediately bails him out. Meanwhile, Hextall inoculates herself with the experimental vaccine and then visits her infected father. She does not contract MEV-1, and the vaccine is declared successful. The CDC awards vaccinations by lottery based on birthdates. By this time, the death toll has reached 2.5 million in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide.

Earlier in Hong Kong, World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologist Dr. Leonora Orantes and public health officials comb through CCTV footage of Beth's contacts in a Macau casino and identify her as the index case. Government official Sun Feng, believing the US has secretly developed a vaccine, kidnaps and holds Orantes for months as leverage to obtain the first vaccines for his village. WHO officials provide the village with fake vaccines, and Orantes is released. Learning the vaccines were placebos, Orantes goes to warn the village. Meanwhile, life begins to return to normal, with public venues accessible for those with a vaccine bracelet.

In a flashback to the spillover event, a bulldozer from Beth's company clears a tree in China, disturbing a bat colony. One bat takes shelter in a pig farm and drops a piece of infected banana, which is consumed by one of the pigs. The pig is slaughtered and prepared by a chef in a Macau casino, who, without washing his hands, transmits the virus to Beth via a handshake.