Contact (1998)
Posted by Heather on April 30, 2008
Dr. Eleanor Arroway (Jodi Foster), a radio astronomer, has dedicated her life’s work to discovering intelligent life threw deep space broadcast. Her life’s work is proven worth as she and her co-working scientists attempt to decrypt the message sent. Once comprehend, it seems there are instructions for a gigantic machine. The questions of spirituality vs. science become an enormous question while the scientists build the machine, but the world continues to ask if the machine was sent to destroy them. Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), is the antithesis of Dr. Arroway. His search in life, is not in Science, but in his faith and God. Eleanor and Palmer both serve each side of this question, and wait for the answer.
Contact’s initial feel was that this would be a scary alien movie of some kind. It isn’t long before the script clearly says, it’s a film about religious and spiritual ideals versus that of scientific and how they affect us all. But it seemed Robert Zemeckis had other idea’s in order. From the music to the way the film was shot it felt like a science fiction thriller, whereas the story itself contradicted the imagery and sound. Because of this misrepresentation the film was one confusing anti-climatic let down. The depth of the story was fantastic, it was unfortunate that the ending felt like it robbed the audience of something more. In fact, the entire film felt like the script was battling the storyteller.
However, the build up to the great machine being built was absolutely enrapturing. The small bits of information unfolding, the countries and powerhouses stepping it, not to mention the zealots declaring the worlds end. It all created for a very realistic environment if something on that level were to ever happen. It didn’t hurt the film to have Jodi Foster performing with her usual fluency and dedication. The intellectual and emotional level that she connected with her father was powerful. I felt like Contact did make itself plausible, I just found it a shame that it couldn’t seem to find a balance between it’s story goal and story telling goal. Years later, I see it as a much better movie than I did when it was released in the theaters, but even so, the ending is still a disaster. It is definitely worth a rental, but not a purchase in my eyes. Two out of Four stars.
