The truth is within ourselves

Rating: 8/10 (17 April 2001)

Robert Zemeckis strikes again, with a beautifully done SF story, an impressive drama about the quest for truth, for revealing huge misteries and for the sacrifices we're willing to do to accomplish our dreams.
Ellie Arroway is a talented scientist, who searched all her life the proof of the existence of extraterestrial life forms. She has to fight not only with the difficulty of her job but also with the funders, the ones that pay for her research and who think that she is wasting her time and her talent on something that cannot be proven. One day Ellie picks up an audio signal, who proves not to be from Earth, but from a star named Vega. From this point starts the quest for knowledge, an impressive tale that will keep you watching until the end, although its pretty long runtime (more than 2 1/2 hours).
Jodie Foster is brilliant as Ellie, she manages a great performance, alongside Matthew Mc Connaghuey and an also surprisingly good Tom Skeritt.
Zemeckis shows the whole story with an extra touch of feeling, and during the film you get connected with the characters, you get to care about them or you get to hate them. But there are no "bad guys", no character to totally hate. Each one has good points and does good deeds. But they also screw up from time to time.
This film is very good so i recommend it to everyone - you won't feel sorry. Vote : 8.5 out of 10.