An Indiana electrician is sent out on a late night job when he encounters a UFO. From that point on, to the chagrin and even neglect of his own family, he becomes obsessed with finding out the truth behind the occurrence and is inexplicably drawn, along with several other people, to rendezvous point in a mountainous region of Wyoming. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was Steven Spielberg's followup to his smashing hit "Jaws", and is a thoughtful and highly entertaining look at alien encounters. Above everything else, the film is marked by spectacular special effects that seem almost impossible for the time it was made. From his own screenplay, Spielberg crafts scenes of great invention and directs them with the greatest skill. In the lead role, Richard Dreyfuss is an ideal everyman and is given great support from Teri Garr and Melinda Dillon, who play his concerned wife and a woman undergoing a similar experience, respectively. Legendary film director Francois Truffaut also has a wonderful role as a scientist orchestrating the greetings for the great alien arrival. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is an impossible film, both for its supreme special effects and in the rare and intelligent way it approaches its subject.
