Contact Review
by "Randy Turgeon" (canran AT xtdl DOT com)February 21st, 1998
Contact
Summary
Eight year old Ellie Arroway (Jena Malone) and her father, Ted (David Morse), are very close. Her mother died while giving berth to her and her father never remarried, bringing up Ellie on his own. She is a very intelligent girl and her hobbies include such things as short wave radio and telescopes, hobbies she shares closely with her dad. Tragedy strikes her life when her dad dies that year.
Flash forward to present time where Ellie (Jodie Foster) has pursued a scientific career, becoming an astronomer. She listens intently to sounds emitted by the universe, hoping to make contact with other intelligent life. She has a bumpy road ahead as her boss, Dr. Drumlin (Tom Skerritt) informs her that her department is getting shut down. She refuses to give up, and successfully interviews for an investor to back her project on her own.
Ellie's dreams come true when she eventually hears what she believes is an intelligent signal from outer space. It is indeed confirmed to be so, and the signal is decoded to reveal a shocking image. It is video footage of Hitler giving his speech before the 1936 Olympics. That is not all. It also appears that the signal contains thousands of pages of text, which turn out to be blueprints for a machine. What exactly the machine will do is a mystery, although it appears like it will act as a transport. Ellie finds that her troubles have only begun. She now has to deal with many problems, including
a brash, unfriendly military advisor (James Woods), her former boss who returns to stake his claim, her lover (Matthew McConaughey) who questions her non-religious motives, the overall media frenzy that the machine causes, and bizarre dealings with the mysterious S.R. Hadden (John Hurt), the owner of the company backing her project.
All is not lost for Ellie, as she is eventually chosen to be the sole person who will "pilot" the machine for its incredible journey into the unknown, a journey into history.
Commentary
I read many reviews for this film when it came out last summer and found that people either loved it or hated it. There was no in between. I can honestly say I fall in the "in between" category.
I liked some of the plot threads, such as the accurate depiction of the media frenzy and radical religious groups. There are some good performances, most notably William Fichtner who, I thought, had been typecast to play psychotic killers, John Hurt as the eccentric millionaire, and Angela Bassett as the White House Aide. Jodie Foster does her usual fine job also.
What I did not care for was the relationship between Foster and McConaughey. They did not have much chemistry together, and I felt their relationship was predictable. I could accurately guess every time the McConaughey character was due to pop up in Ellie's life again, and I knew I should have bet the farm on whether or not he would betray her at some critical point during her quest. If anything, I felt Ellie had more chemistry with John Hurt (of all people), considering both of them were outcasts and a bit eccentric.
There has been much talk about the ending to Contact, and this is where most critics are divided. I felt that the ending was a major letdown. Without giving away too much, lets just say that I felt that there could have a been a lot more done with Ellie's destination and who she sees when she gets there. The special effects are nothing special either. I have seen some good films with sub-par endings before ("Swimming With Sharks" and the alternate ending to "Clerks" come to mind), and some of them can be forgiven because the overall effect of the movie escapes unscathed. But because the entire point of Contact relies on its ending, and that ending is so poorly done, I cannot recommend the film.
Contact **1/2 (out of five)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis.
Ellie Arroway...................Jodie Foster
Ted Arroway.....................David Morse
Michael Kitz.....................James Woods
Kent Clark.......................William Fichtner
David Drumlin..................Tom Skerritt
Palmer Joss.......................Matthew McConaughey
Rachael Constantine............Angela Bassett
Written by Randy Turgeon, February 17, 1998.
www.xtdl.com/~canran
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.
