Contact (1997) [PG] ****

Science-fiction stories about extraterrestrials typically involve aliens traveling to Earth, or humans traveling to another world and encountering aliens. Contact is unique in that an alien intelligence twenty-six light years away receives our earliest TV broadcast, and then transmits it back to us along with instructions for assembling a machine that can travel interstellar distances virtually instantly.

While the interstellar journey and alien contact are fascinating, Contact uses them to reconcile the argument between science and religion over the existence of God. The position of science is that physical proof is required before God's existence can be accepted. The position of religion is that since God is not physical, there can be no direct physical evidence of God's existence, and we must accept it on faith. The way Contact reconciles these two positions is by having a scientist experience interstellar travel in the machine, meet an alien intelligence, return to Earth without any evidence, describe the subjective experience, and then endure the disbelief, ridicule and contempt that inevitably follow whenever an unbelievable personal experience is shared.

This is exactly what happens whenever someone has taken an inner journey and experienced a religious conversion or a spiritual awakening. As anyone who has ever attempted to share such an experience can attest: For one who has had the experience, no explanation is necessary; for one who has not had the experience, no explanation is possible. Whether you agree with Carl Sagan that human beings are the result of natural evolution on Earth, and that human consciousness is the culmination of that evolution, or you believe that human consciousness is the foundation of the human species, the divine spark that makes us unique in the universe, I predict you'll find Contact interesting and intellectually stimulating.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, Contact stars Jodie Foster as Dr. Eleanor Ellie Arroway, a woman obsessed since youth with the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI); Tom Skerritt as Dr. David Drumlin, Ellie's supervisor and SETI skeptic; Matthew McConaughey as Palmer Joss, Ellie's spiritual truth-seeking friend, confidant and sometimes-lover; James Woods as Michael Kitz, the president's national science advisor; and John Hurt as S.R. Haddon, the billionaire entrepreneur who funds Ellie's search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Based on Carl Sagan's novel and a story by Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan, the tightly-written, well-paced screenplay was written by James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg. While all the characters are well-drawn, one of the especially interesting ones is S.R. Haddon, who might have been based on billionaire, high-tech eccentrics like Howard Hughes and Elon Musk. And, not coincidentally, the name S.R. Haddon was also the name of Esarhaddon (also spelled Essarhaddon), king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Sennacherib in 681 BC until his own death in 669 BC, and who was most famous for his conquest of Egypt in 671 BC. Why would the screenwriters have chosen this name for a character in Contact? That's an excellent question.

Labels: drama, mystery, sci-fi, thriller
Internet Movie Database 74/100
MetaScore (critics=62, viewers=80)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=69, viewers=78)
Blu-ray
Esarhaddon