'Contagion' is a cerebral thriller

Leave it to Steven Soderbergh to make a cerebral thriller about a global pandemic that focuses not on a rollicking quest to eradicate, but on the scientific discoveries that take place in a calm, quiet laboratory as the world outside goes mad.

This is the realm of “Contagion,” which is sure to be one of the more compelling idea films of autumn, an involving and often disturbing film that marks the latest chapter in its director’s eccentric, sometimes brilliant career.

Bursting onto the cinematic scene with “sex lies and videotape,” stumbling until “Out of Sight,” and finally taking a seat at the Major Filmmakers’ Table with “Traffic,” Soderbergh is always unpredictable. Anyone who has followed his oft-retracted retirement plans knows this is true.

But it is his choice of films and subjects that truly thrills. For every “big” film, there is a more personal, idiosyncratic “small” one.

So is “Contagion” a “one for them” Soderbergh picture, like the glossy “Ocean’s” trilogy or the power-to-the-people “Erin Brockovich”? Is this “one for me” Soderbergh, joining the likes of “Che” or “The Girlfriend Experience”?

Can’t it be both? Like 2009’s wildly underrated “The Informant,” “Contagion” is a quasi-genre pic with brains, a frightening, utterly believable look at what could come down the pike, and how we might — or might not — deal with it.

We begin on “Day 2” of a pandemic, and within the first 15 minutes have seen two notable deaths (one was given away in the trailer, and it’s a biggie). As the disease spreads, we meet an international cast of characters, including Kate Winslet, as a steely doctor, Laurence Fishburne as a CDC bigwig, Marion Cotillard as a World Health Organization investigator, Jude Law as an omnipresent blogger, and Matt Damon as the everyman forced to confront the realities of a global catastrophe.

This is a mighty cast — I haven’t even mentioned a martini-relishing Gwyneth Paltrow, furrow-browed Bryan Cranston, and a frumpy Elliott Gould — and some might find “Contagion’s” hopscotch style a major flaw. As we crisscross the globe, it’s hard to become too attached to any one character, though the sad-eyed Damon, an ideal audience conduit, and indefatigable Winslet come close.

Yet I did not find this too devastating a flaw. In fact, it drives home Soderbergh’s concept that anyone, at anytime, anywhere, could be next.

Oddly, the film seems to come down on the side of bureaucracy; Law’s truth-seeking blogger is treated as a money-grubbing crackpot who turns down a pregnant woman seeking help. Even his teeth are bad.

On the other hand, the film’s heroes are, in many cases, the “little people” working in government and health care, for the CDC and the WHO. This is a surprising choice for Soderbergh and scripter Scott Z. Burns. It’s an inversion of the 1970s-paranoia aesthetic that the film often seems to aim for, a sort of anti-“Parallax View.”

That is hardly, however, a real criticism, especially when the acting from those on the side of bureaucracy is so powerful. Fishburne has never been more confident, Winslet is a heartbreaking and believable heroine, and Jennifer Ehle is also worth mentioning. The Brit actress, best known for the beloved Colin Firth-starring BBC adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice,” is perhaps the film’s true hero. Her crusading scientist is an unshowy, note-perfect creation, and an example of Soderbergh’s skills of observation.

Stylistically, then, “Contagion” finds the director back in “Traffic” territory, juggling a large cast and international locations. But Soderbergh has made a stronger, more successful film, one that manages to both entertain and make you think. It’s important to stress that it is highly disturbing, especially in its first 15 minutes.

But “Contagion” is a real conversation-starter, and its epilogue is especially profound. In some ways it makes us rethink all we’ve seen before, and shows the audience just how easily the things we don’t see can sneak up and attack us. Cough, cough.•

CONTAGION

3 1/2 stars

STARRING: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Marion Cottilard, Laurence Fishburne

DIRECTOR: Steven Soderbergh

RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes RATING: PG-13 for disturbing content and some language.
THE LOWDOWN: As a lethal pandemic spreads, the medical community races to find a vaccine before it’s too late.