Contagion

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 13th November 2011

Forget zombies, aliens or supernatural beings, fomites – that is, inanimate objects capable of carrying infection – are the new instrument of fear, spreading end-of-the-world-panic in a matter of days, as the planet’s population risks being swiftly decimated by a mysterious virus.

Director Steven Soderbergh has a knack for fun and wit (see Oceans Eleven et al), but arguably a better talent for the serious, as evidenced in his Oscar-winning film Traffic, which dealt with the various effects of drug crime on different milieus of North America and Mexico. And so here, when one of Hollywood’s biggest stars is killed off in the opening scenes, you know his film means business.

A businesswoman returns from a trip to Hong Kong, and immediately falls gravely ill. Meanwhile, people in Tokyo, Canton and Chicago are sweating and coughing on public buses, touching doorknobs, handrails and passers-by.  Before you can say “Marie Curie”, Epidemic Intelligence Service officer Kate Winslet (excellent as always) and Laurence Fishburne are joining forces to track the origin of the virus and prevent its spread. Calling in the WHO (personified by the increasingly ubiquitous Marion Cotillard), the various strands of the story pick up pace to mirror the rate of infection.

The boffins are great (principally the fascinated but emotionally remote Jennifer Ehle) and even the science they teach us is enlivened by such phrases as “the wrong pig met the wrong bat”. The “conspiracy” strand, however, while necessary as a realistic depiction of how the online world responds to outbreaks and dramas of all sorts, is undermined by Jude Law’s dodgy tooth and even dodgier Australian accent, as his blogger improbably meets US officials in rainy public parks to convince them that “12 million unique visitors” to his website think his is a voice worth listening to.

As with all Soderbergh’s work, the film is beautifully lit, shifting between a lush colour palette and the greys of illness and death. It’s well acted and largely compelling (it’s always reassuring to have Matt Damon steering you through troubled waters), but, despite this, somehow doesn’t quite capture the desperation of the situation.

Using the same notion of universal applicability as A Nightmare on Elm Street (which posited that anyone who fell asleep might be murdered in repose), Contagion‘s effect on the cinema-going masses may be proven by an increase in diagnosed cases of OCD and sales of hand sanitiser.

The Adjustment Bureau

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 13 March 2011
Many people like to think that things happens for a reason – there is reassurance to be had in the glass-half-full attitude that “what’s meant to be, will be”.  At the same time, we believe we can control and attain what we want in life.  But imagine life is actually more structured, and less random, than either philosophy allows – and that every step we take, and choice we make, irreparably affects the way our life unfolds.

This is the premise of The Adjustment Bureau, as politician David Norris (an immensely likeable Matt Damon) threatens to tip off his path to the White House when he meets and falls in love with a complete stranger.  In a situation reminiscent of Sliding Doors, things get complicated when Norris turns up to work minutes earlier than “planned” and witnesses something he shouldn’t.  Suddenly he is a target for the enforcers of the eponymous Bureau as they contrive to get him back on track.

Emily Blunt plays the dancer who captures Norris’ heart, and there is real chemistry in the couple’s quick-fire banter and immediate ease with one another.  The story (taken from Philip K. Dick’s short story “The Adjustment Team”) dallies with cod-religious philosophy while not quite giving us answers, nor anything polemical that might offend our own sensibilities.  The script is well-paced, toying with interesting ideas around freewill and destiny, and we are kept guessing, along with Norris, as strange men in fedoras try to prevent his blossoming romance by hurtling through doorways that don’t quite lead where you’d expect, like something out of The Matrix or Alice in Wonderland.

The conceit is arguably quite complex for the inevitably cursory handling in a 95-minute film – at times the ideas feel glossed over, and the denouement is somewhat clunky.  But it’s an intriguing film, nonetheless, and any flaws can be overlooked by its ability to offer you an alternate reality for a while, and the necessity for a post-mortem after it ends.

Inside Job

The banker did it

Nowadays, documentaries are savvy enough to make themselves almost as exciting as fiction films – and in some cases, more so.  Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop is a very current example of a movie that has captured the enthusiasm (as well as the admiration/skepticism/curiosity) of its worldwide audience.  Its history of street art littered with jump-cuts and an exhuberant soundtrack, Exit… is at times reminiscent of the filmmaking style of Tony Scott or Michael Bay, thankfully without sacrificing its credibility.

Inside Job takes a more serious and considerably drier subject – the recent Global Financial Crisis (hereinafter the GFC) and explores the GFC’s origins, tracks its destructive path and analyses its (almost) aftermath.  It’s a fascinating and sobering study of something that, whether we are financial bods or not, has affected every one of us in some way.  The breadth of its likely audience will depend on how interested people are in sitting through what could have been construed as a 2-hour Powerpoint presentation.

However, director Charles Ferguson builds tension and intrigue by interviewing the great and the not-so-good of the finance world, from Harvard dons to disgraced New York governors (the seeming irony of Eliot Spitzer expressing his opinion about others’ wrongdoing is put into context in the final reel).  Of course, the likes of Michael Moore and Nick Broomfield have been buttonholing unwilling interviewees for decades.  Ferguson is to be applauded for knowing his stuff, and engaging with his subjects intelligently and respectfully – even if he is given short shrift once or twice when his spade suddenly hits the lid of the treasure chest.

One often forgets, when watching a non-fiction film, that even documentaries purporting to express unbiased, objective statements are subject to all manner of subjective construction – the choice of when to edit a scene; the framing of the interviewee; the handling of those who refuse to take part (it’s virtually impossible to see the banker who “declined to be interviewed for this film” as anything other than a crook with something to hide).  With that in mind, the audience collectively balks at the bar graphs showing obscene profits, bonuses and dividends that would pay off the aghast viewers’ combined mortgages many times over.

With a suitably grave and persuasive tone, Matt Damon narrates the subtly simplified story of hedge funds and derivatives, cocaine and strippers.  You don’t have to have a commerce degree, but it would probably help.  In any event, Ferguson manages to piece together a coherent and accessible analysis of the GFC, eschewing the manipulations of Moore and even Errol Morris (for whose work I have great respect) to allow the widely-felt reality of the GFC to do all the talking.