The closest thing to ‘life imitating art imitating life’ we are likely to ever see.

Some of the most minutely observed, expertly cut montages of the 2010s in service of a rhythmic form that moves with the same ruthlessly clinical disregard for human life as our economic and political institutions—or, I mean, a viral disease. the high-profile casting gives the viewer a false sense of safety as Soderbergh proceeds to peel Gwyneth Paltrow's face off her skull in the opening 15 minutes, just moments after showing her son having choked to death on his own vomit, and it doesn't get any easier to watch from there. as others have pointed out, that moment where Winslet tries to give her blanket to the infected man beside her in a moment of intimate movie heroism and instead, Soderbergh smash cuts to her corpse being stuffed into a bag... Just brutal stuff. Very weird experience to watch this in the middle of a literal pandemic.

Never expected Matt Damon's daughter to pick U2 for her prom slow dance song. What a twist.

lets all blame gwyneth paltrow

Damn, could you imagine if anything like this ever happened in real life

i bet matt damon never had to go through this on mars

sorry but this is extremely unrealistic

You best start believing in contagion stories, Miss Turner....you're in one

Yeah. I mean. Yeah.

I guess it's not surprising that this would feel more brutal and terrifying than ever, but it's still a triumph of editing and in-camera film techniques. The woozy focal lengths that communicate feverish brains combined with those insert shots of hands on public transport poles or faces smeared with cold sweat are so paranoia-inducing. The hard cutting of the film only makes it all so much worse; the smash cut from Winslet weakly trying to hand her coat to another dying patient to her corpse sealed in plastic and being placed in a mass grave is among the most singularly unpleasant, profoundly unnerving moments in cinema history. Soderbergh's cold precision as a filmmaker, and Martinez's metronomic score, epitomizes the steady progress of the human response, but at every turn it's emphasized how impossible it is for humanity to get ahead of a disease. At the moment it certainly feels like the best horror film of the last decade.

Ah yes cinéma, the suspension of disbelief