Spread It Around
15.09.11
, Which provided a somewhat different take on the cheating-husband theme. It wasn’t just that the husband cheats with his wife’s sister but also that the whole thing comes unraveled because the character played by James Spader likes to videotape women.
I was therefore primed to see what Soderbergh would do with the global-killer-virus-that-threatens-to-wipe-out-most-of-humankind genre. I wasn’t disappointed. While producing a very tight, effective thriller that is also intelligent, he managed to personalize the story rather than focus on the sensational aspects, as many in the genre have done. Along the way, the film nicely illustrates how thin the patina of civilization is, even in “developed” countries that presume to have structures in place to protect their citizens. Soderbergh also takes a major potshot at blogging that people take as news, showing how easily people’s fears can be exploited for the blogger’s gain.
Even when showing social breakdown in the face of an unknown, rapidly exploding virus, the tone of the film remains low-key and sensible. Beginning with Day Two, for reasons that will become clear in the final sequence, the narrative explores the gradual realization by scientists that not only are they unable to identify the virus, it is infecting people by the merest touch.
Source: North Coast Journal