Starring Jodie Foster Directed by Robert Zemeckis Rated PG Running time 140 minutes We gives this film a rating of 10 out of 10

(July 11, 1997) -- Finally, with Contact, sentient moviegoers get a major summer treat. Adapted from the late Carl Sagan's inspired novel, directed with imagination and purposefulness by Robert Zemeckis and starring the peerless Jodie Foster as its brilliant, passionate, lonely heroine, this is a movie to savor.

It outlines the enormous thematic arc of Sagan's tale right at the opening credits and in stunning, purely visual terms. A dance through the galaxies ends at a single point of light in the human eye, that of Foster's Eleanor Arroway. Clearly there's more than a touch of the poet William Blake's mysticism at work here.

Despite a thematic reach that spans the heavens and earth, Zemeckis' film embraces all the basic entertainment values. Contact folds mystery, adventure, romance, humor and a strong strain of social criticism into its story of one woman's spellbinding journey. It takes her to the distant planet Vega and puts her in contact with intelligent life on that planet. It also takes her home and, belatedly but surely, puts her in contact with the urging of her own heart.

The film begins with an extended passage on the young Ellie Arroway, who lost her mother before she could know her and who has developed, under her adored father's guidance, a strong interest in making radio contact with people in distant places. When she connects with someone in Florida from her Midwestern home base, it's an exhilarating moment -- a defining moment, really, for both daughter and father.

She wonders aloud if there are people not only in distant places on Earth but also on distant stars in the heaven. "If there weren't," the Floridian says, "it'd be an awful waste of space." That response becomes a kind of mantra for Ellie Arroway through the years. The little girl who couldn't stay away from her radio matures into a brilliant science student, a star of one of this country's top academies.

Yet she is also quite alone in her consuming interest in the possibility of finding intelligent life on another planet. Her academic mentors and colleagues belittle her. Grant money to continue her research is increasingly hard to come by. Yet she persists in her obsession, listening and monitoring and hoping until one day the payoff comes, and it is enormous. Suddenly every scientist in the country wants a part of the action. Suddenly she finds politicians crowding her and the media hounding her.

Through it all, she persists, tenacious and clear-eyed but gifted with a capacity for genuine awe.

Although Matthew McConaughey, as a man of faith who both supports her and challenges her, and James Woods, as a sneering national security bigwig, make the most important contributions in a generally first-rate supporting cast, Contact is a signature piece for Jodie Foster. The match between who she is (and has always been) as an actress and the character of Ellie Arroway is so perfect that it is impossible to think of anyone else in the role.

Contact taps into her capacity to show both strength and vulnerability, girlishness and maturity, conviction and doubt. Above all, it taps into her intelligence. Time and again Zemeckis searches her face at close range, asking her to wordlessly strike a subtle emotional note: trepidation, regret, resolve, bemusement.

The big emotions -- exhilaration, terror, despair, awe -- are very much a part of the performance as well, but Foster's handling of the subtleties of an immensely gifted, complex character's inner life provide the best measurements of the performance -- its grace notes, if you will. At one point in the film, for instance, Foster's Ellie finds herself wanting to look glamorous for the first time in her life. She has to ask a friend where she might find a fabulous dress. It's a throwaway line, really, and one with built-in comic value. In Foster's reading, though, it will break your heart.

At the other end of the emotional spectrum, there's a moment when Foster's Ellie realizes she has just ruined her chance to enjoy the prize of her life's work. She's at a government hearing, one of several candidates being interviewed for the most extraordinary space journey ever undertaken by a human being. Others shamelessly, immorally play politics. She stays true to herself.

In a flash, Foster tells the camera of both the character's steely resolve and excruciating disappointment. The heroic conviction Foster brings to that moment defines not only the character but also the actress; you want to stand up and applaud.

The time for that will come, no doubt, in the awards season. Meanwhile, there's Contact to confirm that there is, after all, intelligent life in Hollywood. Bravos for all concerned.