This past weekend, Jodie Foster threw a wrench into the Best Supporting Actress race, surprising pundits when she won the Golden Globe for The Mauritanian. Maybe we shouldn't have been so shocked; The Academy hasn't acknowledged Foster since her 1994 nomination for Nell, but the HFPA never stopped loving her (8 nominations, 3 wins, 1 lifetime achievement). Three years after her last Oscar nomination, she was back on the hunt for a Golden Globe. The movie was Robert Zemeckis' Contact and the role was one of the most challenging in the actress' long career…
Adapted from a novel by Carl Sagan, Contact is one of the strangest sci-fi tentpoles Hollywood has ever produced. Rather than being about the excitement of adventuring into new worlds, the story tackles the perceived incompatibility between scientific and religious thought. it does this by putting forward a situation that's beyond our understanding of the universe, of reality itself. It centers all these philosophical inquiries on the trials and tribulations of Dr. Eleanor 'Ellie' Arroway, who spends her days searching for radio evidence of extraterrestrial life. One day, after years of research, a signal appears, catapulting the scientist into a journey that might take her to another planet, another dimension even.
How do you perform curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge? How do you make thinking and looking at screens into a riveting drama? In the role of Ellie, Jodie Foster must externalize intrinsically internal phenomenon, articulating her character's ineffable thoughts while not making her into an insular cipher, so cerebral she's unintelligible for the viewer. The actress does this with aplomb, adding sufficient specificities to illuminate Ellie's personality, how she exists in the world, how she relates to the vexing mundanity of governmental pressure, and the incomprehensible wonder of alien communication.
This might be a film of monumental ideas, but all of its concepts are tethered to a character study. As she travels beyond the limits of human reach, we're right alongside Ellie, prescient of what goes on inside her heart, her head. In Foster's own words, she saw the character as a prodigy, someone who's entirely on her own and falling in love with the universe, alienated from those around her because of a necessity to find the truth. She's chronically alone, isolated, afraid of intimacy. All of these elements influence Foster's negotiation of tone throughout the film and how she maps out Ellie's character arc.
Awkward more often than not, Ellie's brash and blunt, unable to hide her feelings. This transparency makes her a rather inept player in the political sphere, but a great movie protagonist. We get to see how much her powerlessness annoys and frustrates, precipitating anger. Indeed, her swallowed-down wrath is as incandescent as her love affair with the heavens. However, there's a shadow of sadness undercutting every instance of fury, old grief from childhood traumas, and a lifetime of broken dreams. As she argues for her ideas, one may find her rhetoric flustered, but what I see is the notes of sorrow that Foster employs to modulate the text. This is greatly apparent when we see the contrast, when Ellie's in her element, relaxed, happy.
She lights up when talking about her passionate research. For an instant, all frustrations disappear and it's just her and the stars, memories flashing by her eyes, a relaxed smile melting the ever-present frustration. The nebula of ancient guilt dissipates as if she can finally breathe after spending most of her day gasping for breath. More than a romantic spark, that's also what makes Ellie's dynamic with Matthew McConaughey's man of faith into such an interesting thing to observe. With him, she becomes looser, she can breathe. Despite or maybe because of this, Foster regards the other actor as a particularly difficult puzzle. One senses the will to solve him, not out of lust but curiosity. Such odd choices make the subplot work even as it threatens to derail the whole enterprise.
Contact is a long movie and Jodie Foster's work is appropriately epic-sized. She takes Ellie through such strange situations and radical reckonings that we can spend hours examining every detail. Notice, for example, how, unlike Foster, Ellie isn't used to be in front of cameras. Her discomfort is palpable when she's asked to speak in public before a wall of journalists. One of the niftiest aspects of the characterization is how each of her public appearances reveals growth, while never being at ease. Anyway, all that mundanity aside, we can probably all agree that it's when Ellie gets inside a contraption that will take her to another world that Foster shines, bright as a supernova. She begins the voyage stoic, but as the mechanisms vibrate around her, panic threatens to emerge.
As she insists she's okay to go, her mantra goes from an adventurer's determination to a desperate cry, the last hold on her sanity, her strength. The voice loses its bullish intensity and gradually becomes tender, a child's plea. And then, the seemingly impossible happens, Ellie's voyage takes her to the unknown. It's strange how emotionally overwhelming it is. Some may find Foster's capitulation to sentimentality cheesy, even laughable, but I find it beautiful. Ellie may not be able to express the miracle she's witnessing, but Foster can. Even as words escape the character, the performer telegraphs every ounce of amazement with her voice, her gob-smacked expression.
For those who haven't watched Contact, I don't wish to spoil the details of what happens at its climax. However, let me leave you with the assuredness that what Foster does is tremendous, a storm of reasoning and grief crashing over the scientist. She cries, interrogates, and sees what exists far from our little corner of the Universe.
Apologies if these are the words of a crazy man, one intoxicated by admiration towards this performer and this oddest of sci-fi extravaganzas. Regardless, I find it hard to watch Foster's big testimony scene at the end, after the voyage, without wanting to stand up and applaud. I'm an atheist but do consider myself interested in spiritual matters, fascinated by faith, and someone who has often yearned for it or the understanding of its role in life. Watching Foster's plea for the belief in what cannot be proven, I feel like I understand. There's no greater compliment I can pay to a performer. For an awe-inspiring moment, I believed, not in God, but the possibility of the impossible. I sound silly, but trust that I'm being sincere.
In the 1997 awards season, Jodie Foster conquered a Golden Globe nomination for her work in Contact. Furthermore, the actress won the Saturn prize as well as a couple of critics' honors. Unfortunately, when Oscar nomination morning came around, Contact was mostly ignored, even in Visual Effects, and was only recognized by the Academy's sound branch. AMPAS' chosen five in the Best Actress category were Helena Bonham Carter in The Wings of the Dove, Julie Christie in Afterglow, Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown, Kate Winslet in Titanic and, the winner, Helen Hunt in As Good as It Gets. Pam Grier for Jackie Brown was probably ahead of Foster in the final voting, but both thespians were certainly in the running. Christie's surprise nod was probably to blame for neither Foster nor Grier getting their deserved recognition.
I dedicate this write-up to the great Katerina Petrova Zamolodchikova, but you can call her Katya. The drag superstar has sung the praises of this flick more than probably any other human being, just one of the many reasons why I'm a fan of hers. If you haven't watched Contact yet, follow Katya's adoration and go experience its wonders right away. You can find the movie streaming on Hoopla, or you can rent it.