Subject: Review: Contact (1997)

From: "Stuart Cracraft" <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Jul 1997 15:19:53 GMT

'Contact' shows why Jodie Foster is one of our best actresses.
See Contact with your family. It is a movie for all ages.

--A review by Stuart Cracraft
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CONTACT
Starring: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, John Hurt
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Star Rating: **** (out of ****)
Rating out of Ten: 9.0
Grade: A
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After a predictable MIT Phillip Morrison powers-of-10 zoom-out start
(which can be surprising to those not familiar with Prof. Morrison's
work), Contact picks up steam, gradually, building, by-the-end, an
irresistable juggernaut and a very good movie that does not as is so
often the case fall out-of-balance in terms of too much pandering to
the technological "geek" side.  By the end, the audience is left with
what good science fiction is supposed to do: evoke a sense of wonder
about the universe and evoke questions in your mind about what's out
there.

This movie does not let technology overshadow characterization and in
this sense it is unusual amongst high-tech movies. However, except for
Jodie Foster (Elie Arroway) and John Hurt (S.R. Hadden), who are both
actors of exceptional caliber, the supporting cast are not especially
impressive.  Hurt certainly has had better roles (Stephen Ward in
Scandal). This one, as the multi-billionare Hadden, does not do his
acting skills justice.

This is clearly a Foster movie by one of the great Hollywood lights of
our generation.  Foster's radiance has never been more strong than in
the scene where she finally meets the Vegans on their terms. Early
scenes take a long, long time to build up to this. The movie's pacing
is very good and subtle. The panoramas of the radio dishes at Arecibo
and CETI in New Mexico and Puerto Rico are beautiful.  The politics of
Foster's character attempting to obtain funding for research at these
places are trite and predictable however.

One of the most entertaining, but very short scenes, is when Foster is
confronted by Rob Lowe, during a cabinet-level presidential meeting to
discuss the alien invitation. There were real sparks in this scene
between Foster and Lowe and it would behoove them to consider other
vehicles in which this dynamism could be explored. It is the only
scene in the movie in which there were tremendous dynamics between two
characters. Everything else was very one-sided (e.g.  Foster).  Lowe
can stand up to Foster and it showed in that scene at the cabinet
table.

The core scene of the movie is set on a surrealistic beach on a
far-away world in the starsystem of Vega. It feels a lot like science
fiction writer John Varley's scenes in his book STEEL BEACH, where the
female protagonists encounters an immensely superior intelligence, in
one case a computer manufactured by mankind itself, and in Foster's
case, an illusion drawn from her memory.  In another sense, this
immensely moving scene evokes Gene Roddenberry's STAR TREK pilot The
Cage, later The Menagerie, when Jeffrey Hunter and Susan Oliver have
their memories manipulated to create new worlds in which they live and
encounter aliens.

The concept is not new, by any sense, in the world of science
fiction. But the beach scene, which is the centerpiece of the film, as
is the whole film, is driven by Foster. Freed from her needs to direct
by director Zemecki, Foster is able to let it all hang out in the
characterization and the lead she provides to her supporting cast. As
the movie gains speed, Foster's acting intensifies and the audience
really does experience it with her. It is certainly Oscar-caliber
acting, unquestionably.

The supporting cast does well and Zemeckis throws in some humor with
some President Clinton cameos, cleverly manipulated, George
Stephanopolus-style, to seem very Forrest Gump. In fact, Zemeckis
et. al. got in trouble for the usage of some of the footage seen in
the movie, vis a vis Clinton. But the audience I attended this movie
with just had some good chuckles at Clinton's walk-ons.

The much-discussed tension between science and religion in this movie
is not particularly insightful to those who have already gone through
this course though it is helpful to those in the audience who have
not. Also, the near-final scene, in a Senate Judiciary Hearing room is
disappointing.

Contact is a fitting memorial to the memory of Carl Sagan, science
popularizer, and sometime pedantic gadfly of the halls of
academe. Perhaps now, Sagan can be said to be with his Dragons of
Eden.