Not bad but a bit confusing

Rating: 7/10 (28 April 2014)

To make a movie about this subject is difficult and daring because there is too much at stake since it deals with complex scientific aspects that cannot be lightly treated and also moral and even religious aspects of great depth. Nevertheless director Zemeckis manages to surf through these obstacles avoiding the main barriers but not without leaving a few things partly unexplained. It's the story of a lady scientist and astronomer who is fascinated by the possibility of finding extraterrestrial contacts displaying the existence of (human?) life in other parts of the universe. She meets with enormous difficulties, antagonisms and resistances on that task of hers but also some support from other people and sources. The movie from a certain point on enters in a series of unpredicted events, full of agitation and emotion in which the performance of Jodie Foster as the main protagonist is excellent. In the last part there are some scenes full of visual and factual poetry and beauty. All this, however, with a certain lack of complete explanation of a few scientific and technical details treated too lightly like for instance the building of the mysterious machine according to plans sent from Vega. And the final ending though very poetic is a bit confusing.