History Film / Contagion2011

The responsibility of identifying and treating the new outbreak falls to the World Health Organization and Center for Disease Control, with scientists around the globe researching the virus, including Dr. Ellis Cheever (Fishburne), Dr. Erin Mears (Winslet) and Dr. Leonora Orantes (Cotillard). Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a conspiracy blogger named Alan Krumwiede (Law) searches for answers, while a fellow doctor named Sussman (Creator/ElliottGould) tries to identify the virus.

Meanwhile, Mitch discovers he is genetically immune to the disease, and desperately tries to protect his daughter Jordan from it, not knowing if she has inherited his immunity. This troubles Jordan because she can't risk infection to be with her boyfriend.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/contagionposter_5959.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:"''Nothing spreads like fear."'']]

''Contagion'' is a 2011 DisasterMovie directed by Creator/StevenSoderbergh and starring Creator/MattDamon, Creator/MarionCotillard, Creator/KateWinslet, Creator/LaurenceFishburne, Creator/JudeLaw and Creator/GwynethPaltrow, among many others.

Beth Emhoff (Paltrow) is heading back to [[UsefulNotes/TwinCities Minneapolis]] after stopping at UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} for a layover after a trip to UsefulNotes/HongKong, 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.

The responsibility of identifying and treating the outbreak falls to the World Health Organization and Center for Disease Control, with scientists around the globe researching the virus, including Dr. Ellis Cheever (Fishburne), Dr. Erin Mears (Winslet) and Dr. Leonora Orantes (Cotillard). Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a conspiracy blogger named Alan Krumwiede (Law) searches for answers, while a fellow doctor named Sussman (Creator/ElliottGould) tries to identify the virus.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: With an all-star cast, natch.

* AdultFear:
** One of the first places MEV-1 (an invisible airborne disease with 25% mortality and no treatment) spreads is an elementary school. Exemplified in Mitch Emhoff spending the rest of his movie trying to keep his daughter away from any possible source of infection.
** When Aaron Barnes discovers that he contracted a dangerous and contagious disease, he gets frightened because he’s touched his kids since then.

* DeathOfAChild: It's mentioned the virus has claimed several children, and one does die on-screen ([[spoiler:Mitch's son Clark]]). There were doubtless many more over the six or so months the film covers.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Beth as Patient Zero, as well as most of the early people she infects.

* FlowerMotif: Whenever there is personal loss or tragedy, look for the yellow flowers.

* GildedCage: Of a sort. Orantes is kidnapped and brought to a remote Chinese vilage by Sun Feng in an effort to bargain for vaccines. It's far from a luxurious place to be technically imprisoned but she's treated very well, bonds with the villagers, becomes a teacher and sympathizes with them enough to warn them when she discovers that they received placebos.

* StockholmSyndrome: [[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]].

* ApocalypseHow: A Class 1. Hundreds of thousands of people have died by the end, but [[spoiler:the pandemic is eventually stopped, the world recovers, and life goes on as if this never happened]].

** Given what's going on with COVID-19, however, the scenario depicted appears far more realistic than what was thought when the movie first came out. While COVID-19 is far less lethal than MEV-1, the level of response is pretty close to the same, as is the scale of the science attempting to find a cure. Even the speed with which a vaccine is ultimately developed, a bit of artistic license in 2011, turned out to be ahead of its time, as by 2020, research into [=mRNA=] had advanced enough that safe, effective vaccines could be developed and distributed less than a year after the first lockdowns.

* {{Irony}}: Early in the film, Dr. Mears exasperatedly tells one of her colleagues to stop touching his face. [[spoiler:She winds up dying despite all of her efforts and knowledge in tracing and stopping the spread of MEV-1, while the colleague is last seen in completely good health and has presumably survived by the end of the film]].

* AFatherToHisMen: Dr. Cheever makes sure to tell Dr. Mears before she leaves for Minnesota to call him "if you're staring at a wall at 3 AM wondering why you took this job." Later in the film he makes sure to ask her how she's doing and when she starts talking about what she's doing he steers the conversation back to her mental and emotional state.

* AdultFear: One of the first places MEV-1 (an invisible airborne disease with 25% mortality and no treatment) spreads is an elementary school. Exemplified in Mitch Emhoff spending the rest of his movie trying to keep his daughter away from any possible source of infection.

** Given what's going on with COVID-19, however, the scenario depicted appears far more realistic than what was thought when the movie first came out; even if COVID-19 is far less lethal than MEV-1, the level of response is pretty close to the same, as is the scale of the science attempting to find a cure, and the speed with which it is (maybe) ultimately developed.

Beth Emhoff (Paltrow) is heading back to UsefulNotes/{{Minneapolis}} after stopping at UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} for a layover after a trip to UsefulNotes/HongKong, 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.

Beth Emhoff (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.

The film was critically praised for its realistic depiction of a contagious disease, and grossed $75 million dollars at the U.S. box office.

* HateSink: Since you can't really hate the actual antagonistic force of this film (a nonsentient virus), Krumwiede fills the slot of a legitimately unlikable villain.

** Given what's going on with COVID-19, however, the scenario depicted appears far more realistic than what was thought when the movie first came out; even if COVID-19 is far less lethal than MEV-1, the level of response is pretty close to the same, as is the scale of the science attempting to find a cure, and the speed with which it is ultimately developed.