Contact Review
by Dean Thomas Sebastian Carrano (dean AT fragment DOT com)July 8th, 1997
CONTACT
Starring Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, Angela Bassett
Viewed July 5, 1997 at advance screening in Forest Hills, NY
Capsule Review: Slow-moving tale lacks promised payoff. But some good moments along the way. 5 out of 10.
At my viewing of this film, I sat next to THE KIDS YOU DON'T WANT TO SIT NEXT TO. They seemed to be expecting "Contact" to be along the lines of "Independence Day". "I better see some aliens!" they demanded of the screen many times, and emphatically urged the story onward at every turn. I didn't share their impatience, but you gotta admit, this movie was LONG. It was about two and a half hours long, and seemed longer (unlike, say, "The Godfather", which is a three hour movie that seems like two hours max.)
For me, the pacing worked fine at first. The movie begins with an epic sequence. The camera begins with a view of earth, and then pulls farther and farther back, taking us past each planet in the solar system. As we leave earth behind, its sounds - radio and TV broadcasts which meander randomly through space - fade out until we hear dead silence. "We get the point already!" cried the kids, but the camera kept going and silence otherwise reigned. The spectacle, especially the dramatic use of total silence, was reminiscent of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and the scene lived up to that high standard.
All these celestial wonders, we are meant to understand, have long been contemplated by our heroine, Dr. Eleanor Arroway (Jodie Foster). Since the thrill of this movie is anticipation, I have to be pretty careful here. Suffice it to say that "Ellie" has devoted her life to listening for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence via the use of massively high-powered radio equipment that I couldn't even begin to explain. This is far from fictional, and indeed, a mark of the film throughout is that it takes great pains to set itself in the real world and to avoid asking the audience to suspend disbelief. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) government project is going on as we speak. It's based in New Mexico, and uses the famous Very Large Array to listen for sounds of alien life. After some setbacks, Ellie is able to use the SETI equipment for her research. Needless to say, everyone thinks she's a flake and the government, represented by the grandstanding science advisor David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), wants to cut her funding and use the money for more "practical" applications. Ellie's research is about to be terminated when...she hears something. A message that could only be produced by an intelligent life form. From then on, we watch the biggest news story in history develop through the eyes of Ellie, its central figure.
This movie reminded me very strongly of two other films. One was 2001, mentioned above. The other is THE ABYSS. 2001, THE ABYSS, and CONTACT are all epics dealing with the first meeting of humanity and an alien race. 2001 is the longest film of the three. However, I would submit that it has the most "payoff." Even though we can argue for hours about what "really happens" in that famous final scene, we accept it as a fitting conclusion. It fits in with the mythos that the story has created. It is sufficiently dramatic. We may not feel totally satisfied, but we take this as a sign that some mystery is still retained, rather than as a flaw in the storywriting.
By contrast, THE ABYSS does not deliver that tremendous kick. And CONTACT is much, much worse in this regard. If I were the aliens, I wouldn't even bother to call us collect with the information they impart, much less go through all the trouble they did. It is a supreme disappointment. At the one moment where the movie needs inspired dialogue (or monologue), the script fails.
One aspect of what Ellie learns from the aliens is brought out by her relationship with Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey). Ellie is an atheist; she sees no scientific evidence of God and thus cannot believe. Palmer is an ex-priest and best-selling spiritual author who believes that science and technology are separating us from ourselves. The relationship reminded me of AGNES OF GOD, where Jane Fonda and Anne Bancroft might as well have had "REASON" and "FAITH" stamped on their foreheads. If you're going to go this route, at least make it a little more subtle. Palmer doesn't have to be the spiritual leader of the country; he could just be a guy that Ellie likes who has strong beliefs.
As it was, these scenes were very unsubtle. Moreover, they were wrongly motivated. The movie assumes that science and religion are irreconciliable. This is just not true. Many scientists believe that the order they study - the beauty of the rules - could only have been created by a supreme being. This is a perfectly self-consistent viewpoint. The dichotomy - the assumption that one must choose between either science and reason, or religion and faith - simply does not exist. However, since the movie does set up this dichotomy, it is to its credit that Ellie does not become a religious convert.
One cannot help but be impressed by the plausibility of the "science" scenes. I suppose this is what happens when you have Carl Sagan working on your movie; the late, great astronomer not only wrote the novel on which the movie is based, but co-wrote the screenplay and served as co-producer. The news coverage of the event, and the reactions of the masses, are also very realistically portrayed. As I said, the movie sets out to make us believe that this could happen in our world tomorrow. However, that impression is undermined by the final scenes. At a Congressional hearing, Ellie is grilled by another nasty government guy, Michael Kitz (James Woods). Ellie is supposed to be the smartest person in the room, and there are any number of ways in which she could have answered the questioning so as to make Kitz look absolutely ridiculous. Instead, she is made into another victim of the supposed reason/faith dichotomy. The last half hour of this movie needs serious editing. So does the first half hour, which does not contribute enough to the story to pull its weight.
To sum up: The special effects are spectacular. (Although everyone in the theater laughed at the computer-enhanced appearances of Bill Clinton as himself. I know FORREST GUMP director Robert Zemeckis likes to do this, but it was really gimmicky and detracted from the mood here.) The story, although it moves slowly, gets you excited when it does move. You'll believe in the story, and you'll be on the edge of your seat as the film moves towards its climax. And then you'll say, "Yeah...and?"
5 stars out of 10
Movie review by Dean Carrano - [email protected]
(This is my first review. Please send comments!)
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
