So yes, Rich Flu (the disease of Greed) is a virus which continuously recalibrates its parameters! It begins by killing billionaires. Once the billionaires are gone, it shifts its threshold down to multi-millionaires, then to anyone with over a million dollars - and continues dropping. The primary physical sign that someone has been 'infected' by the flu is that their teeth begin to glow a strange, bright white colour! The world seems to be treating it like an outbreak of Covid with officials gowning up, tented analysis with scientists at hand and military units trying to maintain control and isolate those who get it - or are likely to - not realising that it's not really biological.
This brings us to our main character, though - Laura, played flawlessly by Mary Elizabeth Winstead (but you knew I'd say that!). It is a good job, too, because frankly the first half-hour of the 1-hour-45-minute runtime was a bit of a bore, rescued only by her performance. The film spends far too long setting the scene, milling around Laura's world of Hollywood filmmaking at lavish events, rubbing shoulders with the elite and defining for the audience who was rich and who wasn't. I really think we could have got the idea clearly enough in five or ten minutes, tops!
Anyway, yes - we follow Laura, who is fighting a custody battle with her estranged husband, Toni, played beautifully by Rafe Spall (The English, A Room with a View), whilst trying hard to connect with her 16-year-old daughter Anna (Dixie Egerickx). At the same time, she is trying to climb ever higher up the wealth ladder, jet-setting here, there and everywhere, spending huge amounts of money left, right and centre in the process. Incidentally, Rafe's dad, Timothy, is also in the film for a few scenes, playing one of the uber-rich bods (and Laura's boss) in that slow first half-hour.
So, having money is a death sentence, it seems, and as the wealthy folk get the idea about what's going on, they all desperately try to offload their assets by signing them over to others or giving them away - thus lowering their stock value and net worth to survive. Or so they hope! The film flits between London, America and Barcelona as Laura tries to convince Toni that their daughter would be better off with her in the UK.
Unfortunately (as it turns out) Laura gets news of the promotion of a lifetime, and Timothy Spall's character hands her billions of dollars worth of company stock. Laura initially celebrates her massive new fortune, but the horrifying reality soon sets in - he didn't promote her out of kindness, but realised the virus was about to lower its threshold to his wealth bracket, and by dumping his billions onto Laura, he effectively passed her the death sentence to save himself. Or so he hoped!
So now, just over a half-hour in, things become much more interesting as the film turns into a survival yarn. The banks close down, global supply chains collapse and the stock market freezes - leaving Laura stuck with her massive net worth, at least on paper. She can't get rid of it now, so she basically awaits her white-teeth moment! Will it come?! Survival mode kicks in; Laura, Toni and Anna flee the city and head deep into the countryside. They seek refuge on a remote, commune-style farm - a money-free environment owned by Laura's hippie mum, Martha (Lorraine Bracco), with whom she, of course, doesn't get on!
As society falls apart, the rich are hunted down by the poor and the virus continues to lower its threshold toward everyday middle-class wealth. So I'm not sure why, by this stage in the tale, Laura hasn't got her Colgate Grin! Survival becomes a brutal nightmare and the nuclear family have to flee again, this time on Mum's small boat heading towards Africa and away from wealthy Europe.
From hereon in, the story is very much about the collapse of society, how they negotiate travelling the coast of Africa on a small boat and what it's like to end up with refugee status, hunting and fighting others for a crust of bread. By this stage, they are realising that there are more important things in life than the acquisition of wealth, which you can't take with you anyway! They end up owning nothing and relying on each other to find a way out of this harrowing situation.
It is, of course, an absurd notion for a story (unless you're going to introduce the supernatural, as I said at the outset), presented much more as an allegory to talk about class, capitalism and greed. It's fairly nicely shot and produced, with the best of it coming in the second half of the film as things get tough for the family. Most of the players around Winstead do a decent, if not good, job, but it's really her show. And she looks great. Now arriving on streaming platforms in the UK.
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