Disclosure Day
“Disclosure Day” hinges on a number of leaps of faith on the part of its main characters. The fundamental one at the center of the film is the idea that, in disclosing unquestionable proof that we are truly not alone in the universe, we will not act out of fear of the unknown, but empathy built on the notion that our problems are miniscule in the cosmic order. The final minutes of “Disclosure Day” represent perhaps the biggest narrative swing of Steven Spielberg’s career, and as the credits begin to roll, it truly did stick the landing he wanted to make.
The story by Spielberg, as distilled through the terrific screenplay by David Koepp- his best in the pair’s long collaboration- is about a group of independent contractors for a secretive company tied to keeping the government’s most closely held secrets who steal a trove of those secrets which would show that the US has covered up knowing about extraterrestrial life since the Roswell crash in 1947. The idea that aliens have visited Earth is one widely-held in the real life, and this is Spielberg’s acknowledgment that yes, he does believe that has happened. He also believes that disclosure is something no one government can decide is for the betterment of mankind. That is the crux of this film’s plot.
Our journey begins, jarringly, in the middle of a wrestling match that is being attended by Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor). A backpack on his back, Kellner is set upon by two people in black, who lead him out of the arena, where a caravan of black vehicles are awaiting them. The head of the company in question is Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), who is holding Kellner’s girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson), hostage. The pair get away with the secrets, and they start on the run. As written, Kellner feels like Edward Snowden, who was the whistleblower in the government’s surveillance program in 2013, but there’s something more about Kellner’s connection to these particular documents, and he is not the only one stealing them- another head person at the company, Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), is the one pushing for this disclosure. We see him in a warehouse where the construction of a mockup of a house is being done; he interacts with Kellner over the phone, leading him where he needs to go.
In Kansas City, a meteorologist, Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), is preparing for her day in the apartment she shares with her musician boyfriend, Jackson (Wyatt Russell). After a cardinal flies into the apartment, unusual things start to happen. Margaret is randomly going into foreign languages, and she seems more perceptive of the people she interacts with. She rushes to her morning report, but when she starts speaking in an unusual language on camera, and faints, she is rushed to the hospital. The clip goes viral, and she is on Scanlon’s radar, and Kellner’s. Their fates will be intertwined after that.
The funny thing is, this feels like I’m giving away a lot of the plot of “Disclosure Day,” but most of this has been disclosed in the trailers for the film. The way some of these pieces fit together is what I will not reveal- the film deserves to reveal that itself. One thing I will say is that it’s interesting that this is coming out a decade after Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival,” which approaches the subject of visitation and human connection to the cosmos in a radically different way, but also with a view that communication, not violence, is the answer. “Disclosure Day” is a thriller, first and foremost. This is Spielberg operating at a pitch and velocity as he did with “Dual,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Minority Report,” and he is firing on all cylinders. There’s an economy to the plot mechanics of the film that is thrilling to see him bring to life with shadings of empathy towards the characters as they go on this journey. Yes, Kellner and Margaret are the main people we’re going on this story with (and O’Connor and especially Blunt are fantastic in their roles; in fact, I’d put Blunt’s performance among the best Spielberg has ever directed), but Jane in particular has her own journey to go on in this film, and it leads to some deeply philosophical questions that get to the heart of the matter of whether we’re alone in the universe. As Ellie’s dad says in Robert Zemeckis’s “Contact” (which I revisited recently), “If it is just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.”
Fans of science fiction- especially conspiratorial sci-fi- will no doubt be familiar about a lot of the tropes within Koepp’s screenplay, but it is the way that Spielberg brings them to life that makes “Disclosure Day” the experience it is. This is a director’s film, and it is built out of spectacle (in which he is aided by fantastic work by long-time collaborator Janusz Kaminski, 2nd unit cinematographer Patrick Capone, and editor Sarah Broshar), grounded in empathy (which is anchored by John Williams’s breathtaking score), and inspired by an unshakable faith in humanity to move towards what benefits the greater good that is deeply rooted in many of Spielberg’s films. Whether that is chasing after long lost artifacts; saving victims of systemic violence; making sure a family which has lost three children in war does not lose a fourth; releasing the evidence of a government who knows a war has been a lost cause; or challenging our inherent fears of the unknown. “The Fabelmans” might have been Spielberg laying his life bare for us to watch, but “Disclosure Day” is as pure a distillation of his philosophy as a human being and storyteller as we’ve ever seen. That is what is reflected in the film’s finale, and it is one of his finest moments as a filmmaker. The same can be said about the film as a whole.
