1) I think you're right that Matt Damon is the default emotional focus (the movie more or less begins and ends with him), but I found the time spent on each character to be balanced enough that who will end up being the emotional focus for each individual who watches is probably idiosyncratic. For me it was Jennifer Ehle (geek woman, duh) and to a lesser extent Laurence Fishburne.
2) What I think was interesting about this movie is that it didn't posit a lethal pandemic as transformational. The more I think about that, the more I think it's interesting. They did portray the breakdown of society, but they suggested that society is resilient to that in the long term. Trash piles up, riots break out - but the labs keep researching, the government is still there in the end to portion out the vaccine, and society accepts this imposition of order. The use of force becomes dodgy for a bit, but only at the margins, and in the end it's reconsolidated by the government, and the government has not used the excuse to go crazy. The movie postulates that we can face a fundamental social upheaval and come out of it still sane. I don't know if that's true, but I think it's plausible. And sweet.
3) In general, I think this is a subset of my general feelings about this movie, which is that it seemed to be coming from a basically sympathetic, humane view of humanity. Humans in this movie can be and are decent people even though they also make mistakes. (And not just in that annoying, Hollywood-redemptive "I WAS bad, but now I have seen the light and I am GOOD!" way.) I think it's note-worthy that the only really bad character in the movie, Jude Law's reporter, is also the guy that's out there trying to pillory people for showing occasional human weaknesses. Maybe being able to forgive yourself and others when you slip from the ideal is a prerequisite for staying sane and staying good in hard times? I feel like Jude Law's character is living in a post-apocalyptic movie; the rest of them are living in a medical drama.
3) The funny thing about Chin Han is that to me his face looks so trustworthy!
no subject
1) I think you're right that Matt Damon is the default emotional focus (the movie more or less begins and ends with him), but I found the time spent on each character to be balanced enough that who will end up being the emotional focus for each individual who watches is probably idiosyncratic. For me it was Jennifer Ehle (geek woman, duh) and to a lesser extent Laurence Fishburne.
2) What I think was interesting about this movie is that it didn't posit a lethal pandemic as transformational. The more I think about that, the more I think it's interesting. They did portray the breakdown of society, but they suggested that society is resilient to that in the long term. Trash piles up, riots break out - but the labs keep researching, the government is still there in the end to portion out the vaccine, and society accepts this imposition of order. The use of force becomes dodgy for a bit, but only at the margins, and in the end it's reconsolidated by the government, and the government has not used the excuse to go crazy. The movie postulates that we can face a fundamental social upheaval and come out of it still sane. I don't know if that's true, but I think it's plausible. And sweet.
3) In general, I think this is a subset of my general feelings about this movie, which is that it seemed to be coming from a basically sympathetic, humane view of humanity. Humans in this movie can be and are decent people even though they also make mistakes. (And not just in that annoying, Hollywood-redemptive "I WAS bad, but now I have seen the light and I am GOOD!" way.) I think it's note-worthy that the only really bad character in the movie, Jude Law's reporter, is also the guy that's out there trying to pillory people for showing occasional human weaknesses. Maybe being able to forgive yourself and others when you slip from the ideal is a prerequisite for staying sane and staying good in hard times? I feel like Jude Law's character is living in a post-apocalyptic movie; the rest of them are living in a medical drama.
3) The funny thing about Chin Han is that to me his face looks so trustworthy!