Contact **** (1997, Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Skerritt, David Morse, William Fichtner, James Woods, John Hurt) – Classic Movie Review 1108

‘Look, all I’m asking is for you to just have the tiniest bit of vision.’ Co-producer/director Robert Zemeckis’s 1997 film stars Jodie Foster, who plays Dr Ellie Arroway, a young, driven astronomer who receives humankind’s first message from an extraterrestrial source.

Fighting for her rightful place as leader of the scientific investigation into the message, Dr Ellie Arroway turns to her one ally, Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), a respected religious scholar and top-level government adviser.

Dr Ellie Arroway vies to be selected as the single representative who will leave Earth and travel through the galaxies to explore the new world of the unknown extra-terrestrial source, and become the first person to make contact.

Foster is excellent in this engrossing, credible and realistic close-encounter yarn, intelligently handled by director Zemeckis, with a great support cast adding allure.

James V Hart and Michael Goldenberg’s screenplay is based on a book by leading astronomer Carl Sagan, who co-wrote the screen story with Ann Druyan and co-produced with Zemeckis. He died of cancer during the filming in December 1996.

James Woods, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, David Morse, Angela Bassett, Rob Lowe, Geoffrey Blake, Jake Busey and Jena Malone also star.

Jodie Foster married her girlfriend, photographer Alexandra Hedison, over the Easter weekend in April 2014.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1108

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