Disclosure Day
For the fifth time in his career, and the first time since 2008's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, director Steven Spielberg returns to the subject of alien life on Earth. Through the use of Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor who somehow know things beyond what is possible, Eve Hewson as O'Connor's religious girlfriend, a government conspiracy run by Colin Firth, and an underground movement to reveal the truth led by Colman Domingo, Disclosure Day asks the question: Do those who know the truth of alien life have a right, or an obligation, to share that knowledge with he world?
The conflict in the film comes from how each character answers that for themselves be it out of fear, control, righteousness, or empathy. Is some knowledge too dangerous to be shared or is hording that knowledge, through a vast government cover-up, doing more harm than good?
After O'Connor's character steals proof in an attempt to share it with the world, he becomes hunted by this privatized army with governmental backing to do whatever it takes to keep the truth from coming out. At the same time Blunt's character begins to experience odd sensations of understanding being able to speak in other languages and see into the lives of those she meets. Getting these two characters together at the right place at the right time is the key to Domingo's plan while Firth uses dangerous alien science and the army at his command to prevent the world being altered in a fundamental way.
With aspects of both an action film (including a pretty ridiculous train sequence) and science fiction yarn, Disclosure Day is most about a philosophical debate about knowledge and who has a right to it. Spielberg makes his argument as the film meanders to its big reveal and the film's title comes into focus. Whether or not the journey to get there, or what the film's ending offers, is worth the time it takes to get there, however, is a bit up for debate.
Disclosure Day is a good film, but it's not a great Spielberg alien film. That bar has been set too high. Not on the level of either Close Encounters of the Third Kind or E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial lacking their wonder and scope, and I'd probably rank it beyond War of the Worlds as a visceral film experience as well, Disclosure Day becomes Spielberg's fourth best alien film. Although it's far from his worst, it's also perhaps one of Spielberg's least rewatchable films given how it is conceived. At least it's better than Crystal Skull.
Disclosure Day is a film experience worth having, likely to spark more conversation about the film and its ideas than lead to repeated viewings. While I enjoy Blunt and O'Connor, I don't know that more would be gleamed from the film on repeated viewings (other than perhaps a better appreciation for various shots and film structure). Disclosure Day's gift, and perhaps curse, is everything you need it delivers within a single viewing which is meant to be the on-ramp to spark your own internal monologue and discussion of the right solution to the logic puzzle Spielberg unveils. In that, it certainly succeeds.
- Title: Disclosure Day
- IMDb: link
