contact is a film that tries to do several different things . 
it is intended to present a realistic picture of what alien contact might be like , to restore a sense of wonder and mystery to the issue of extraterrestrial life , to raise questions about science and faith and how they would be relevant in such a situation , and to tell a personal story of a romance between the astronomer dr . ellie arroway ( jodie foster ) and the religious spokesman palmer joss ( matthew mcconaughey ) . 
the film succeeds wonderfully at its first two goals . 
the portrayal of the communication from an alien world is much more reasonable ( albeit less immediately engaging ) than , say , the cold-blooded destructiveness of the invaders in independence day or even the complex process of abductions and genetic hybridization that forms the ongoing plot line of tv's the x-files . 
the aliens in contact seem to be like us-they are more curious than anything else . 
they know we exist , they want us to know that they exist , and they would like to make the next step and communicate in person . 
the film wisely refrains from showing us the aliens directly , and between the characters' ongoing speculation about the extraterrestrials and the outstanding visuals in the climactic yet enigmatic scene when arroway arrives on the alien world , that sense of wonder and mystery comes through with a force rarely seen since stanley kubrick's 2001 : a space odyssey . 
most of the film , however , takes place on earth , where there is an extended public debate on how to respond to these aliens . 
scientists are enthusiastic , ultraconservative religious leaders are wary , and government officials are caught somewhere in between . 
the debate is fueled largely by dr . arroway's atheism ; she seems the obvious choice to pilot the spacecraft for which the aliens have provided blueprints , but many are wary of sending an atheist as humankind's representative to another species . 
the film is partly successful in raising and exploring these questions , especially when it reaches a conclusion that suggests that the two approaches - science and faith - could be viewed as complementary rather than diametrically opposed . 
still , the film falls a little short in its representation of this conflict as it exists in american society . 
the two " sides " are represented primarily by arroway and by far-right fundamentalists , but in reality probably 80% of americans are neither atheists nor far-right fundamentalists . 
palmer joss occupies something of a middle ground , but he ultimately becomes distracted by personal motives and comes across as a less-than-ideal spokesman for any ideology . 
then again , the film does concentrate mostly on public debate , which does , after all , tend to be dominated by extremists , rather than on dinner-table or college-dormitory discussions . 
contact is accurate in its portrayal of these issues , then , but only within the narrow scope to which it confines itself . 
the film's one clear failure is in the portrayal of the romance between arroway and joss . 
for one thing , it resorts to the tired movie clich * that two attractive people will immediately fall in love as soon as they appear on the screen together , as there does not seem to be any other reason for their instant mutual attraction . 
the romance rarely , if ever , sheds any light on the characters , although it occasionally tries and fails - joss's explanation that he quit the priesthood because of the celibacy requirement ( " i guess you could say i'm a man of the cloth , but without the cloth " ) , for example , is more like a punchline to a joke than character development . 
instead , the romance mostly seems to exist for the sake of later plot developments . 
granted , this is a plot- and idea-driven film and the characters are secondary , but this just seemed like laziness on the writers' part more than anything else . 
the successes of contact , however , far outweigh its failures . 
even if the social commentary had fizzled altogether ( which it didn't ) , the simple yet mysterious story of alien communication still would have made it a memorable film . 
contact doesn't quite cover all the bases , but it covers about as much as one could hope for in a two-hour film , and its rejection of big-budget theatrics for a more realistic story is certainly admirable . 
and i would not be surprised if , ten years from now , contact is mentioned in the same breath as 2001 and blade runner as one of the finest examples of sophisticated and intellectually relevant science fiction .