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Contact is a 1997 film adaptation of the science fiction novel Contact by Carl Sagan.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis, its main stars are Jodie Foster as Eleanor Ann "Ellie" Arroway and Matthew McConaughey as Palmer Joss.
Plot summary
The plot in the movie is quite loosely based in the novel, and some key characters and events have been added, removed or modified.
Ellie Arroway, the daughter of Ted Arroway (Ted's wife died giving birth to Ellie, and he dies during the film), is a brilliant scientist that has longed for searching for extraterrestrial intelligence since her childhood (then played by Jena Malone), when she used her Amateur Radio to listen for radio signals. As she affords the means to conduct her SETI research (i.e., using a radiotelescope), she gets ridiculed by other scientists and, mainly, by Dr. David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), her former teacher and now chief of the NSF and the Presidency's science advisor. Drumlin ultimately shuts down her research, as he regarded it as a waste of public money.
Ellie and friends start searching for someone to sponsor her research privately, and eventually get a grant from billionaire Mr. Hadden (John Hurt), so her SETI research may go on. One day, the research pays off and an alien message is detected coming from the star Vega. The message consists of Prime Numbers as opposed to any form of screaching, wailing or howling.
After great effort, Ellie, with the help of Mr. Hadden, manages to decode the message, which is assumed (by Ellie) to be a schematic for a teleport machine for one passenger. As the "Machine" (as it is called throughout the movie) is built, disputes arise on who will ride it. There are candidates from several countries (including Ellie, of course), as the construction of the Machine is an international effort. Interestingly enough, the same Dr. Drumlin that has shut down Ellie's publicly funded research, now controls all the political affairs concerning the Message and the Machine and, even worse, he is the front runner to be the Machine's passenger.
Theologian Palmer Joss, besides being Ellie's love interest, has an important impact in the political process of choosing the Machine's passenger - he actually impairs Ellie's candidacy, giving the victory to Dr. Drumlin. In particular, Joss represents the religious aspect of the movie, challenging the atheistic belief of Ellie.
As a religious fanatic raids the test site in a suicidal bombing, the Machine is destroyed and Dr. Drumlin is killed. In this moment we learn that Mr. Hadden's industries, that had the contract to build one Machine, actually built two of them (the second one, secretly, on Hokkaido Island). Mr. Hadden even manages to give Ellie the passenger's seat, so the Machine is finally activated with her aboard.
Ellie travels across deep space through wormholes, and orbits several stars (Vega included) for some sightseeing. In one star system, she sees a planet from nightside, from where lights emerge in a geometrical pattern - gigantic cities from a technological civilization!
In the last stop she gets the most important contact, the one she longed for throughout her whole life.
The film, in effect, covers the transition of an atheistic scientist who refuses to believe in anything without scientific evidence, to a person who ends up trying to make the world believe in what she calls her faith.
Trivia
- Part of the movie is set at the Very Large Array, an NRAO observatory near Socorro, New Mexico. The NRAO facility is actually "the wrong stuff" for what they were doing in the movie, but it does look the part.
- Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's wife until his demise, makes a short cameo appearance, along with former US Vice-Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro.
- Jena Malone's eyes are brown, and have been changed to blue through computer graphics to match Jodie's eyes color in the beginning of the movie when they are shown at close-up.
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