Contagion (1:46) 2011

Beth (Paltrow) arrives home from a business trip in Hong Kong feeling ill. Within days she is dead and so is her young son. Also dead are the people she came in contact with at a casino she visited before her departure for home. High contagious, the flu spreads rapidly with a death rate of 20 to 30 percent. Quickly, the WHO and Atlanta's CDC become involved with the race for a vaccine. A blogger (Law) with a large following is promoting a homeopathic remedy and discouraging readers not to take the vaccine. Within months, twelve million people worldwide are dead and social order is rapidly breaking down. Schools are closed, the hospital nurses are on strike until protocols are in place, and state borders are closed. The film addressed the bird flu and H1N1 and how these viruses mutate. Contagion is a frightening movie because it addresses the subject matter is a very realistic way. My grandmother always spoke about how frightening the Spanish Flu was in 1918. She was a teenage store clerk and lived in fear because so many people she knew died. She didn't like having to exchange money with customers. Let's hope we never have to live through this. On an another note, the best line in the movie was a prominent doctor saying to the blogger. "A blogger is not a writer, it is just graffiti with punctuation." I recommend this movie for the thoughtful, realistic manner in which the subject matter is treated, giving us a lot of food for thought.