Contagion: Difference between revisions

 

Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) is heading back to Minneapolis after stopping at Chicago for a layover after a trip to Hong Kong, and begins to exhibit symptoms of a highly contagious disease. Soon afterwards, several other individuals in Hong Kong begin to exhibit the same symptoms. Upon returning to her husband, Mitch (Damon) and their two children, Beth collapses and is rushed to the hospital, while across the world, thousands of people begin to die from the same symptoms.

 

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* [[Abandoned Hospital]]: Not just because of MEV-1, but because nurses were on strike during the outbreak.

* [[Aerith and Bob]]: The female characters in the film are named Beth, Jordan, Erin, Ally, Aubrey... and ''Leonora''.

* [[All of Them]]: During the autopsy on Patient Zero, the moment they take a look at what's left of her brain.

'''Older Pathologist:''' "I want you to call everybody." }}

* [[An Aesop]]: The worst thing we have to fear is fear itself. In a crisis; don't panic, stay rational, trust the professionals, and don't look for scapegoats.

** And ''always wash your hands''.

* [[Darkest Hour]]: {{spoiler|Mears is dead}}, the virus' infection rate is increasing, no one has any answers, tens of millions have died, cities are deserted and the WHO or CDC realizes that it will take months to develop a viable vaccine and inoculate the population... {{spoiler|and then Dr. Hextall discovers that one of her vaccine samples ''works''}}.

* [[Dead Star Walking]]: {{spoiler|Gwyneth Paltrow as Beth Emhoff}}.

* [[Decoy Protagonist]]: {{spoiler|Dr. Mears}} is set up as a potential hero early on in the film. Then {{spoiler|she}} gets sick and disappears for a chunk of time, only to be revisited as {{spoiler|she tries (in vain) to give a blanket to a fellow patient just before she dies}}.

* [[Dies Wide Open]]: As evidenced by the autopsy, {{spoiler|Beth}} died this way.

* [[Disaster Movie]]: The director clearly stated he was inspired by movies like ''[[The Poseidon Adventure]]'' and ''[[The Towering Inferno]]''. Oddly, no real scenes of horrific ruin or collapse are shown, choosing to focus on personal dramas.

* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: Beth {{spoiler|cheated on her husband}} while in Chicago (on her way home from Hong Kong), and ends up {{spoiler|not only dying from a deadly virus, but also killing the man she cheated with (who subsequently infected Chicago), her son, the Eastern Coast of America, and 26 million people}}. She is subsequently referred to as "Patient Zero".

* [[Flower Motif]]: Whenever there is personal loss or tragedy, look for the yellow flowers.

* [[Foreshadowing]]: {{spoiler|If Krumwiedehas supposedly been "cured" of the virus by taking Forsythia, why does he still walk around in a jury-rigged hazmat suit for most of the film? And why doesn't he give Forsythia to the female reporter from the beginning of the film? And what's with the "Prophet / Profit" signs?}}

* [[Mega Corp]]: AIMM, the company Beth works for and whose logo looms in several scenes. While not in any way purposely malevolent, {{spoiler|the company's deforestation of the area the first infected bat was residing in was what caused it to spread the infection}}.

* [[New Media Are Evil]]: Krumwiede and his blog are the focus of this. One doctor, feverishly working on attempts to find possible vaccination methods while Krumwiede harasses him, calls his blog "graffiti with punctuation", and he blames corporations and government organizations at every chance he can get. This increases when Krumwiede turns out as a massive internet celebrity with a major amount of influence on the public's opinions on the virus and the cure... namely, by encouraging people to look into alternative treatments and stirring up paranoia over the vaccine.

* [[No FEMA Response]]: [[Averted Trope|Averted]]. The CDC and FEMA really get rolling when they realize how bad the disease has become, but their efforts are constantly constrained by both time, limited supplies, a panicking public, government distrust, and hospitals going on strike.

* [[Oh Crap]]:

** Cheever and Dr. Mears have one when {{spoiler|they each find out that she's been infected with the virus}}.

** And when the pathologists [[Discretion Shot|get a look]] at {{spoiler|Beth's MEV-ravaged brain during her autopsy}}:

*sloshing noises are heard, implying that the virus has [[Body Horror|liquefied Beth's brain]]* }}

* [[Overprotective Dad]]: Mitch Emhoff is a mild version, keeping his daughter from meeting the boy she likes even though neither of them are sick. Even though there's a chance she's immune as he is, he's not going to take it. {{spoiler|When the boy is vaccinated, he immediately makes up for it by setting up a personal prom night just for them.}}

* [[Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right]]: {{spoiler|Sussman goes against orders to destroy his research in order to successfully create it in a lab. Hextall injects herself with the untested but viable vaccine sample, since the proper procedure would have taken nearly twice as long to get results. It works.}}

* [[Sex Is Evil]]: The film starts with Beth talking on the phone with a man she's just been unfaithful with. This connects the disease to sex in two ways: as a [[Red Herring]] and as [[Guilt By Association]]. At first, the scientists don't know what kind of disease it is, so sexually transmitted is one of the options they're investigating. Also, a viewer with a certain kind of mindset could feel compelled to feel that her adultery caused the disease on a spiritual level: that it was fate or God's punishment for wickedness.

* [[Shown Their Work]]: The film is a relatively scientifically accurate portrayal of a pandemic:

** The fictional MEV-1 virus is based on the real life Nipah virus (which does cause pneumonia-like symptoms and seizures).

** The molecular biology of the virus: genome size, number of genes, even identifable splice sites from different strains of the virus (bat vs. pig) pretty much match up with how viruses work in the Real World. Its inability to replicate in standard cell culture is also a feature of some [[Real World]] Viruses, such as Hepatitis-C.

** The vaccine development. Rhesus macaques are one of the most common test animals for vaccine work, because their immune systems are extremely similar to that of humans, much more so than rabbits, rats or other experimental animals. The vaccine scenes suffer only from Hollywood Compression (see below).

** MEV-1 getting stored next to Smallpox and samples of other well-known samples that caused an outbreak. It does exist, if only on a heavier security level than the one shown.

* [[Soundtrack Dissonance]]: "Merry Christmas", the theme that plays when {{spoiler|Mears dies and her body is placed in a mass grave}} while the other CDC technician discusses ordering more body bags from Canada, is oddly uplifting.

* [[Stockholm Syndrome]]: {{spoiler|Dr. Orantes}} is kidnapped and held hostage to ensure that a large group of uninfected people will get a cure for the virus. However, when the film switches back to {{spoiler|her}} story later in the film, the audience sees that {{spoiler|she}} seems to be working as a schoolteacher and genuinely cares for the children in the village. {{spoiler|Then she learns that the vaccines given for her release were fake, and runs off to warn them at the end}}.

* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]: {{spoiler|Sun Feng}} wanted to protect the remaining people in his village from the virus. For him, this meant {{spoiler|kidnapping Dr. Orantes and taking her to his village for over a hundred days}}.

* [[Water Source Tampering]]: Inverted when the government wants to know if dumping the cure in the water supply will suffice as a quick means of curing everyone. Dr Cheever has to patiently explain that the cure would be too diluted to be effective.

* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: ''Everyone's'' response to Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) {{spoiler|abusing his power and position at the CDC to warn his wife to leave Chicago before the quarantine went into effect}}. It's effectively used by Krumwiede to instill distrust in the government.

* [[Withholding the Cure]]: While this doesn't happen, some believe that it does -- it is one of the destructive rumors that fly around on the internet, and it feeds the paranoia of certain characters. This is used by Alan, who then directs bloggers to get the drug Forsythia.

[[Category:Contagion]]

[[Category:Film]]