Excellent Book - Poor Film

Rating: 4/10 (19 December 2000)

When I first heard that Contact - by Carl Sagan was made into a film I was very excited. The book is good in its own way - a little artificial but that is to be expected when a scientist turns to fiction.
One recurring theme in the book is the search for the truth and the search for the numinous experience (the religious). This theme is very much present in the movie. In the book Ellie is an agnostic, a sceptic both as a scientist and in her spiritual life. In the movie she is made a logical positivist. Well this is to be expected since you have to be explicit when making movies.
But in the movie Ellie has to accept the fact that her only way of justifying what she knows to be the truth is by a leap of faith, thus making traditional religion the "winner" of the debate, the book explicitly says that Ellie finds concrete proof of her version of the truth, thus all but eliminating the element of faith.
The movie thus ends with the opposite conclusion of the book.
When the book was about the search for truth, the possibility of extra terrestrial life, and the inherent beauty of life. The movie pretty much boils it down to being an preaching on the gospel of organised religion.
I didn't like it because I've read the book. But as a film it didn't work to well either. Rent this, to see on a rainy day, but be warned its just a 4/10