Gary K’s review published on Letterboxd:
Film 6/31 - Disease based film
“Blogging isn’t writing, its graffiti with punctuation.”
From the moment I saw the category, I knew I had to slot this in. I’m a big Soderbergh fan, but I hadn’t seen this and once the pandemic started it seemed to hit too close to home, but a challenge? Well yes sir, sign me up.
Whoa, while not traditional horror, this packs quite a punch all the more so for its realism and topicality. Seeing Sanjay Gupta talk about social distancing 10 years ago with the head of the CDC as people hoard water and batteries? Whoa....While the virus in the film is more deadly, at least they seem to be blessed with competent and fair leaders amidst the chaos.
The depiction of the spread, the descent to chaos, rioting, closed borders and mass graves was difficult to watch and realistically terrifying. Jude Law’s embodiment of the fringe conspiracy theorist with alarming parallels to Qanon, Alex Jones and even Joe Rogan and how he garner millions of followers was prescient to say the least. It probably amounts to wishful thinking, though, that the vaccine would be distributed in such a democraticly random way. If recent history has taught anything, it’s safe to say that money will dictate who gets it first, not fairness or even need.
As is typical for soderbergh, the film is shot and framed with economic virtuosity and suffused with terrific performances. A great score propels the narrative from terrifying episode to the next.
The final sequence highlighting the series of coincidences that took place to create the virus and infect the globetrotting super spreader was a perfect coda. Random, but all too possible. Covid is just the beginning.
Horrific indeed.
