Disclosure Day Review
Spielberg’s 5th movie about alien life…does he know something we don’t?
Disclosure Day is a wonderful blend of alien conspiracy theories and politically relevant drama. It may be on the surface a film about alien life, but underneath is a message about communicating with each other and saving our own planet (as has been a running theme in Spielberg’s alien filmography). Spielberg clearly has an affinity for the extra terrestrial but what I really think he’s trying to tell us is that we need to be understanding and looking out for each other more than anything, and he uses these other life forms as the passenger to tell us.
Emily Blunt is Margaret Fairchild, a restless weather woman who can’t seem to stay in one place, who finds herself entangled in a web of conspiracies when she suddenly has visions of Daniel Kelner. Played to perfection by Josh O’Connor, Daniel is a cybersecurity specialist working for the villain in this story, Wardex Corporation. When he is shown highly sensitive footage that proves alien life by his colleague Hugo (Colman Domingo), he ends up on a journey to show the world the truth, no matter what it takes. Wardex Corporation is headed up by Colin Firth, who puts in a career defining performance as Noah Scanlon, a high-strung, power-hungry CEO that will not stop until Daniel and Hugo are silenced. Every performance in this movie is captivating and even when there are so many questions and multiple story lines happening at once, you can’t help but just lean back and let yourself experience it.
However, where the first two acts had me almost giddy with excitement at what I was watching, the third act fell a little short. The pacing that previously had a sense of urgency began to slow down and where the story should have reached an ending of epic proportions, it was so stretched out that it just didn’t have the impact. The final scene was spectacular, it just took too long to get there.
It’s not E.T and it’s not Spielberg’s best, however he is a stellar filmmaker and will always create a captivating, blockbuster experience that I will watch and undoubtedly find something to enjoy in. In the case of Disclosure Day, the central performances and visual beauty of the camera work were the stand out. It feels as if Steven Spielberg has marked important junctures in time with an alien movie. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T (1982), War of the Worlds (2005) and if we’re really going there Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). He has been exploring the idea of extraterrestrial life in his work since the beginning, but interestingly, Disclosure Day feels like him saying, ‘This time, it’s real."‘. In an interview for this work, Spielberg said, “I would say to myself: ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of this turned out to be true?’ Almost 50 years later, I’m now thinking: ‘Wouldn’t be it be wonderful for us to actually know that all of this is true?’”. To me, that is the beauty of this film. Despite the sluggish third act, it feels like it is saying to us, look and listen because this isn’t fiction anymore.