"Disclosure Day"

Warning: Spoilers Below

Throughout his career Steven Spielberg has explored the UFO subgenre through various angles. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind he approached the material through the prism of one man's obsession and the breaking down of the family unit; in E.T. it was a coming of age story. He made H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds in to a 9/11 allegory that was as terrifying as Orson Welles' famous 1938 broadcast. With the fourth Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, he took the 1950s B movie approach to the material, though obviously that foundation was laid by George Lucas. In his newest foray in to his genre, Disclosure Day, it's all about truth and faith. How would peoples' faith in religion and God be shaken by the revelation of aliens, and who gets to decide if the truth should be revealed; should we be treated as children who can't handle the truth and need to lied to by our parents? We of course live in a post-truth world, where "alternative facts" matter as much as objective reality. Trump and his supporters will lie to your face and call you deranged for pointing out what an imbecile and clown (apologies to clowns) he is. Spielberg suggests truth should win out over comfort. Though he's often seen as giving the audience too much comfort rather than challenging or upsetting the viewer, and he perhaps perhaps needed to push and expand upon its ideas, Disclosure Day has potentially one of the most provocative endings of his career.

Disclosure Day feels like the spiritual cousin of Close Encounters. One can feel the spirit of Richard Dreyfuss's Roy Neary in Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor) and meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt). Like Roy, Margaret has something unlocked within her after an encounter with an alien (appearing in the form of a bird). She begins speaking other languages, including an alien one which she speaks live on air. She's also able read minds and while Roy had images of Devil's Tower in Close Encounters, she sees images of Daniel, formally charge keeping government secrets regarding aliens safe but now on the run with proof of their existence. And weirdly, though definitely not coincidentally, Daniel is also able to understand the alien language Margaret is speaking

David Koepp's script begins on a run, pretty much skipping the usual first act stuff and beginning with Daniel already on the run being chased by the shady government unit Wardex and its head, Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth).  As several people have pointed out the film never does the "Five days earlier" thing, we're just expected to play catch up and pay attention. Koepp's script pulls this trick where it skips the first act but still does the first act thing of establishing this bigger conflict then introducing he normal person in to the mix, who is Margaret, which ends establishing her as the main character, more so than Daniel. Like Close Encounters with Roy and Melinda Dillon's Jillian, the story takes its time getting these together, making it more satisfying when these two pieces of the story fit together. We eventually learn both of them were experimented on when they were children, though it's never clear why they were picked by the aliens, other than they're the main characters. Daniel's ability 

Looking over Koepp's filmography, he's done quite a few films I really like, including Brian De Palma's Snake Eyes and the first Mission: Impossible, also directed by De Palma. He's probably best known for writing Jurassic Park and I also feel War of the Worlds is an underrated Spielberg film. Secret Window, which Koepp also directed is also an underappreciated gem. Koepp is adept at structurally his scripts quite elegantly and I actually think Disclosure Day is one of the better structured and paced blockbusters of the modern era. Spielberg and Lucas often get blamed for the blockbusterization of American cinema. Not only would I argue that's more the studios' fault than the two filmmakers, I'd say Spielberg's blockbusters, regardless of how challenging they should be vs. what they aren't, provides a human touch that is often absent in more recent blockbusters. There's also a level of craftsmanship that can't really be denied. Spielberg has always been really good at understanding the appeal of movies and how to make them work on an emotional level. 

Margaret, I think, embodies exactly what a Spielberg often is- funny, sad, melancholic, and very earnest.  This is probably the most I've liked Blunt in a movie. I don't know if she's always been the most exciting actress but she's really wonderful. Like Daniel, she has a partner who questions her journey (this being her boyfriend Jackson, played by Wyatt Russell). Russell is one of those actors who's able to be both likable but is also believable as kind of dismissive guy who doesn't completely emphasize with what Margaret is going through. I love she is pulled over by a cop and through her psychic powers, we learn more about this character then we would've have in an ordinary drama. Blunt conveys the overwhelming feeling of seeing and feeling everything about this man. 

Daniel is positioned as a guy with good intentions but is also someone who, like Scanlon and Wardex, making a choice for everyone else. His love interest Jane (Eve Hewson), who is a former Nun, brings forth the question of how revealing the existence of aliens will affect peoples' faith. Spielberg's films are often about belief in something beyond the material, seemingly rational world. The Indiana Jones movies always have Jones doubt in the supernatural but is ultimately always proven wrong. Disclosure Day doesn't cement a supernatural being existing but puts forward the idea- stated by an older Nun character, that it'd be weird for a God to create such a vast universe just for us. However, the film suggests we shouldn't embrace Messiah figures-- as her powers emerge Margaret outright rejects being viewed as a messiah. The aliens are positioned less as deities in Spielberg's film then they are something hat provokes awe and wonderful while not being inherently superior or necessarily above understanding This makes him the opposite of Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which hypothesis that our evolution and future is largely determined by an unknowable alien species.  

 There's no really winning when it comes to the film's conflict. Scanlon and Daniel both have their reasons for hiding or revealing the biggest truth humanity may ever face. And Scanlon says, there's no reset key if Daniel reveals the truth. I wish Daniel was challenged even further then he is, and O'Connor, while he brings the proper earnestness to Daniel, the problem is Daniel is given the proper grit and hauntedness that I think the character needs. Admittedly, I've already kind of forgotten his backstory. Hewson is appealing but again, I don't feel we get enough of her as a character.

The film also never figures out what to down with Scanlon as a villain. The idea of his using alien tech t invade Janes' mind is a good and creates some tension, but it feels he doesn't get to be as dynamic given the chase-thriller aspect of this film. He's ultimately less of a villain then just some guy, and maybe that's the point. His relationship with Wardex whistleblower Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo) gives Scanlon some proper humanity, and when Margaret is able to appear to others as their loved ones, she appears to Scanlon as his deceased wife, whose death, Hugo, suggests, cut Scanlon off from people emotionally.

It can sometimes feel like the ideas of the film are talked about more than explored, including the conversation between Scanlon and Hugo, where Domingo has to use his natural charisma to sell the more philosophical dialogue. I know I'm starting to sound a little more down on the film than I planned to. I actually overall quite liked the film, largely because its old-school Spielberg feel, which transposes what he did in the later 70s and 80s to 2026. This ends up making Disclosure Day feeling less like a 2026 blockbuster, or at least not like any other blockbuster of this era, then something that feels like it's pushing the blockbuster both towards and back to something more pure and cynical. Like Close Encounters represented something more optimistic for the cynical times of the 70s, the same as Star Wars, which came out the same year, Disclosure Day is perhaps a represents something more optimistic for the post-truth Trumpian era. What better to unite us then the suggestion we are not alone, that out there there's something so much bigger than us. It make all our petty squabbles appear so insignificant. Spielberg was in his early 30s when he made Close Encounters, ending it on a more whimsical note. Almost 80, and with more life experience, Spielberg ends this film on a more sober note, a plea to listen. Hopefully the audience will.