The difference is that “Traffic” actually succeeds in teaching us something. “Contagion” provides no new insights. The script is on par with an infomercial and the acting is not much better. At best, Soderbergh will receive a merit badge for community service for this film.
Matt Damon’s performance is especially poor in this film. He often seems to be channeling Jethro from “The Beverly Hillbillies.” His wife, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, is of the new genre of successful, pretty, but shallow female executives who make cuckolds of their slower-witted husbands. Sadly, Damon’s acting, as bad as it is, is better than Paltrow’s performance. Her posthumous appearance in still photos is her best work in the film.
In Damon’s defense, the real culprit of the bad acting may be the movie’s screenwriter, who actually wrote a scene where a sane man, who just rode to the hospital in an ambulance with his wife who is convulsing and foaming at the mouth, misunderstands the doctor when he is told that his wife is dead.
The scene is torturous to watch.
Unfortunately, I have had the responsibility on more than one occasion to inform a person, totally out of the blue, that a sibling or a family member has died. I have never once had the person miss the point. The emotional immaturity and kitschy-ness of the interaction between Damon and the doctor is downright insulting. Damon’s clumsy handling of this scene will undoubtedly haunt his career forever.
It is not only the sophomoric interaction of the characters that undermines the film - The actual events of the film do not make sense. It is hard to understand how an epidemic can be severe enough to kill millions of people, cause grocery stores to be emptied and lead to the murder of people in their suburban homes, yet there is no impact on the electrical power supply or on cell phone use. What hope is there for teenage parents if even something on the scale of the Black Plague cannot deter teenagers from compulsive texting?
We are led to believe that the social fabric of the country has unraveled as Matt Damon’s character and his daughter take a lions-tigers-and-bears-oh-no ride around town. Seeing a storefront on fire, the daughter asks ominously, “Where is the fire department?” Matt Damon’s character even feels insecure enough to go looking for a shotgun. Yet, when father and daughter arrive home, she plops down to text her boyfriend on an immaculate bed with crisp color-coordinated pillow cases and a matching comforter. Evidently, Tide has stayed in ample supply.
