The search for life outside our solar system becomes a personal and
spiritual quest for a young researcher. Ellie Arroway is a scientist who lost
her faith in God after her parents died when she was a child. However, Ellie
has learned to develop a different sort of faith in the seemingly unknowable:
working with a group that monitors radio waves from space, Ellie hopes that
some day she will receive a coherent message from another world that will
prove that there is a world beyond our own. Ellie's hard work is rewarded
when her team picks up a signal that does not appear to be of earthly origin.
Ellie decodes the message, which turns out to be plans for a space craft,
which she takes as an invitation for a meeting with the aliens. Ellie and her
fellow researchers soon run into interference from a White House scientific
advisor, David Drumlin, who cuts off their funding and tries to take credit for
their achievements. However, Ellie receives moral support from Palmer Joss,
a spiritual teacher who advises President Clinton and tries to persuade her to
accept the existence of a higher power, and financial backing from S.R.
Hadden, a multi-millionaire willing to fund her attempts to contact the source
of the message. Contact was based on a novel by Carl Sagan, who advised
director Robert Zemeckis during the film's production until his death in 1996.