When Steven Spielberg announced Disclosure Day, I feared that it might share too much in common with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. While the comparison is warranted, Disclosure Day channels Close Encounters in the best possible ways. Alien life is central to both films, but they’re more about humanity and our connection to the unknown, as well as each other. Close Encounters built to one of the most awe-inspiring third acts in Spielberg’s filmography. The same can be said about Disclosure Day, although Spielberg pulls off a different kind of feat here.
In Close Encounters, the characters are constantly left asking, “Are we alone in the universe?” In Disclosure Day, we’re dropped into the middle of a conspiracy that confirms there is intelligent life beyond our solar system, and the government has been suppressing it. Even with this knowledge upfront, there’s a sense of mystery that looms over Disclosure Day. For all the questions it answers, it leaves just as many clouded in ambiguity. This is a thought-provoking film that tugs even more at our emotions, namely the curiosity that keeps us gazing at the sky.
Emily Blunt gives an arresting performance as Margaret Fairchild, a meteorologist who finds herself reporting more than the weather. One day, Margaret develops an almost telepathic ability, peering into people’s souls without even realizing it. Margaret also starts speaking other languages, some from other countries and at least one from another planet. It’s as if Margaret has become linked to every other person on Earth. She shares a particular bond with Josh O’Connor’s Daniel, a whistleblower sitting on a cover-up that stretches back decades.
Daniel goes on the run with his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), who once considered becoming a nun. Jane nonetheless maintains a spiritual side, although she isn’t convinced that the world is ready for the information Daniel is determined to share. Aliens and religion are common themes in Spielberg’s films. Disclosure Day provides the most overt correlation between the two, with Elizabeth Marvel turning in strong supporting work as a nun who argues God created a vast universe for a reason. Definitive proof of God’s existence would perhaps be the only revelation that could trump the discovery of extraterrestrial life. Whatever or whoever is beyond the stars, faith is what bonds believers. Of course, there’s believing, and then there’s seeing.
Among other things, Disclosure Day is about the power of the truth. Daniel and Margaret are in the middle of two forces. One hellbent on repressing the facts and the other on sharing them with the world. Colin Firth is reserved yet intimidating as Noah Scanlon, the head of a secret organization tracking Daniel and Margaret. Even if he doesn’t always know their exact location, Scanlon has a way of getting inside other people’s heads. Colman Domingo’s Hugo Wakefield is the antithesis of Scanlon, who believes knowledge is a human right. So many choose to keep their heads in the sand, willing to believe whatever lies politicians feed them. Hugo plots not only to get the truth out, but to present it in a way that nobody can ignore or deny.
Aside from some less-than-convincing CGI animals and a few conversations that would’ve been fleshed out more, this is top-tier Spielberg. By the finale of Disclosure Day, the audience pretty much knows what the main characters do. Remarkably, though, we’re still left on the edge of our seats in anticipation. Throughout Disclosure Day, I was overcome with a sentiment that I hadn’t experienced in a while. The sense that I was not only watching something important, but that I was part of something larger, and everyone else in the theater was taking it in with me. Like Spielberg’s best films, Disclosure Day is a communal outing that reminds us why we go to the cinema.