There was a lot of hype surrounding Disclosure Day, with arguably the worlds most successful director returning to one of his core themes in the extraterrestrial, albeit coming in from a slightly different angle, but I’m sure many of us were left wondering if the man himself could ‘Spielberg’ us one more time. It’s hard to imagine any person, let alone filmmaker, who has such a high standard to live up to given their previous work, even if most of the biggest blockbusters in Spielberg’s back catalogue were released decades ago, their emotional resonance with even the most casual of film fans means that they are ultimately still just as prescient in the movie zeitgeist today. This is what Spielberg has to overcome with every movie, producing something that has the right to stand up there along with his very best and when returning to a tried and tested subject, this becomes an even greater challenge.
The film opens with us following Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), a cybersecurity expert who is brokering a deal with a shadowy government organisation led by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) to get back his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson). It becomes clear that Daniel has stolen information from a company he formerly worked for, along with an extremely mysterious object and him and his cohorts plan to release this sensitive information to whole world. Next, we link up with Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), who is a weather anchor for a Kansas City new station who suddenly develops the ability to speak any language and read minds, which it is alluded to could be linked back to a traumatic event from her childhood. The film follows our two main protagonists on their collision course towards each other and their date with destiny as they attempt to unveil what Dr. Kellner’s ex-employers wish to remain hidden and as they look to dive into their own pasts and uncover those secrets. Along the way there are a number of incredible action set pieces, some philosophical musings and a few laughs, usually at the expense of Margaret’s musician slacker boyfriend, Jackson (Wyatt Russell). In its best moments you get a tingle of that Spielberg magic and you can truly feel the love that the director has for this film but overall there is a separation between what the film is trying to achieve and the experience an audience member has watching it.
Disclosure Day is flawed and each individuals level of enjoyment of the movie will depend on how fatal you find those flaws – for me, I was able to lose myself in the Spielberg magic of it all and enjoy another slab of blockbuster from the guy who first defined that term fifty years ago, even if I knew deep down that we are far from his best. The plot is clunky and certain aspects, especially in the portrayal of the alien phenomenon , seem outdated or unrealistic, almost as if they’ve been bent to fit the shape of the film. If these eye-roll moments really pull you out of the film as a viewer, I can imagine that Disclosure Day will infuriate more than intrigue. The film has a strong message of empathy behind it and it’s once again Spielberg telling us that believes there’s an inherent goodness in the human race and whilst that is somewhat heartwarming in the same way that it’s heartwarming when E.T’s wee finger glows red, it could be what condemns the film. Unfortunately the rest of the world is a lot more cynical than Steven Spielberg and I can’t help but feel that had this film had a dose of that cynicism it would have ultimately been a more engaging and thematically rich text.
In the final act of the film, Emily Blunt as Margaret, dives back into her childhood to find the wonder that has led to her to this point. In a sort of weird, meta way, that’s kind of what I hope for when watching a Spielberg movie, that I’ll be transported back to that fuzzy place of movie magic that is so innately ingrained into films such as Jurassic Park and E.T and whilst Disclosure Day attempts to provide us with that, it feels a little like something we’ve seen before rather than something we’d never get sick of seeing. But it’s still Steven Spielberg.
