Contagion: Pandemic hits Northland in current movie...

By Jim Heffernan

Poster for movie, Contagion

The current movie “Contagion” is about what the title implies: How a global pandemic is caused when a virus that has no known remedy spreads from person to person until millions are infected and who knows how many are dead. Two percent of the world population is mentioned.

And in this fictional treatment of an alarming worldwide emergency, we are not spared. We means Northeastern Minnesota. Here’s how.

Part of the film is set in Minneapolis, where one of the stars, Matt Damon, resides with his wife, played by the actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who returns from a trip to Hong Kong with the virus and the threat radiates out from her. The lissome Paltrow doesn’t seem to worry much about her image as a great beauty. She is seen throwing up some awful looking fluid just before she dies of the virus.

Meanwhile (never underestimate the power of “meanwhile” in journalism), her grieving husband (Damon), trying to save his children, contacts various officials trying to deal with the spreading pandemic and is given some very bad news for Minnesota: “It’s in Ramsey County and even Carlton and St. Louis Counties.” (That’s in quotes, and might not be exact, but it’s close.)

Nice to see we’re not forgotten when it comes to a deadly worldwide pandemic.

It’s an engrossing movie, though. Highly recommended. But if you do go to see it, be sure not to cough in the theater.