"Contagion" begins with Gwyneth Paltrow's character, Beth, coughing as she reaches into a bowl of peanuts at an airport bar on her way home to Minneapolis from a business trip in Hong Kong. This is Day 2, we are told, and she will end up being Patient Zero.
With the help of a low-key but propulsive electronic score, director Steven Soderbergh steadily focuses on the hands as he jumps from Chicago to Tokyo to London in these early scenes, fluidly revealing how we pass our credit card to a waitress or grasp a bus railing or press an elevator button.
The calm is what's so startling in "Contagion" - the cool precision with which Soderbergh depicts a deadly virus that spreads throughout the world, quickly claiming millions of victims.
Review: Contagion
***
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• Rated: PG-13 for disturbing content and some language.
• Director: Steven Soderbergh.
• Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Jennifer Ehle, Marion Cotillard.
• Running time: 103 minutes.
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