A scene from 'Contagion'. Courtesy Warner Bros.

Are you a hypochondriac or a germaphobe? Are you currently sick or know someone who is sick? Do you work in a hospital, take the bus, eat at restaurants, go to school, leave your house, or come into contact with anyone else during the day? If you answered yes to any of these questions, Contagion is going to freak the living heck out of you.

The film follows an outbreak of a new virus as it spreads across the world (Canada excluded because as in your typical alien invasion movie, we’re too good to die with the rest of the world in a Hollywood movie). The virus is strong and rapidly killing people off. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have their best people on it, but it’s spreading faster than they can deal with and they have no cure in sight. Will they figure it out before a large chunk of the human race dies from it?

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Contagion feels like a mix of his 2000 film Traffic, Wolfgang Petersen’s Outbreak (1995), and Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter (2010). It has a huge ensemble cast and the storyline bounces around the globe, yet each character is crucial to the story and the actors are never wasted.

There’s Kate Winslet as an expert in the field, Laurence Fishburne as the head of the CDC, Gwyneth Paltrow as the first victim and Matt Damon as her bereaved husband, Jude Law as a conspiracy blogger, and Marion Cotillard as a doctor with the WHO. Then there’s Jennifer Ehle as Dr. Ally Hextall who actually made me believe she was a doctor and stole the entire movie from its bigger star names.

One other element to Contagion that induced panic in me was the intense score by former Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer Cliff Martinez. Martinez has scored most of Soderbergh’s films but has never hit the mark quite like this. If the thought of catching a deadly bug wasn’t enough to paralyze me with fear, the music was the icing on the anxiety-ridden cake.

Contagion did its job and did it well. It freaked me out, kept me intrigued, and left me scared out of my wits. If you plan to see it, be sure to wash your hands before and sit far, far away from anyone else in the theatre.

Rating: