I check out HBO Max at the start of every month to check to see what just dropped onto the service that I might want to add to my Watchlist and then to check the “leaving soon” hub to see what I am running out of time on. That’s usually reliable, and when I checked it out at the start of December, I only saw 3-4 movies on my Watchlist were leaving soon, most of them at least two and a half hours. That’s basically why I opted to watch The English Patient. But then, for some reason, when I checked that hub again a couple days before Christmas, I found a lot more movies listed there that weren’t there before. Did I miss them before? Were they added since the last time I checked? I don’t know, but the number of movies I would need to see before they left at the end of the month more or less tripled. I probably won’t see all of them, but I can shoot for a number of them.
First up, Contact, a movie that my friend Watson was surprised I hadn’t seen before. Is it appropriate for a Christmas review? Probably not, but here we are.
Astronomer Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) has been dreaming about contacting life from beyond the stars since she was a little girl looking up at the night sky. Not everyone shares her passions, and government bureaucrats have a tendency to shut down her and her colleagues’ research. Then, one day, a transmission that can’t be just anonymous space noises comes through: intelligent life just sent a message back. Included in the message are schematics to build a device that will allow one person, theoretically, to travel out to space and meet the senders of the message. However, this news brings a lot of turmoil, particularly among people of faith, often represented by writer Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey). Palmer, at least, is friendly and even a love interest for Ellie. Other people see the whole message as an affront to God. Then there are the people angling to be that first person to make contact. Who will it be and how will that person be selected?
In many ways, this is a movie about the effect that such a possibility would have on humanity as a whole than it is anything else. Foster’s Ellie is a good character, but she’s more like a witness. Her biggest character arc is whether or not she can find faith in something as a woman of science. Does it matter if the first person to make contact with alien life believes in God in some way? Ellie seems to think not, but she’s somewhat drowned out by the selection committee as a result. Furthermore, there are a number of people who seem more inclined to react in a way to advance themselves or to show distrust for the whole process.
By the by, I don’t think I have ever seen a movie where Foster had a real love interest before, and it was kinda weird. Additionally, I’m not sure McConaughey’s character really serves much of a point in this movie. That said, this movie does have quite the impressive cast, and while James Woods seems to be spot-on casting for a bureaucratic asshole, Tom Skerritt as the guy who takes advantage of situation to advance himself was not something I would have thought of, but he pulls the role off well if for no other reason than he doesn’t seem to be that guy while being that guy. Plus, I didn’t quite recognize John Hurt when he popped on, even as his voice rung a bell. That was rather cool.
Considering director Robert Zemeckis is often known for his big special effects films, this one tends to be a bit more low key. There’s some footage of President Clinton that got recycled, using quotes out of context to make it look like he was addressing the situation, but aside from the actual travel to the stars at the end of the movie, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of special effects on display here. It’s more of a human story, but not any specific human as much as it is focused largely on Foster’s Ellie. But regardless, while not quite on the same level as, say, Close Encounters of the Third KInd, it is a well-told story that reflects more on the political realities of such a discovery. If I have to try and cram in a bunch of movies before New Year’s rolls around, this was a really good one to start with.
Grade: A-
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