Disclosure Day

Legendary director Steven Spielberg returns to the UFO sub-genre for the first time in decades with this engaging and propulsive sci-fi conspiracy thriller.

Premise:  When cybersecurity specialist Dr Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor) steals secret files from his employer, the Wardex Corporation, he and his girlfriend Jane Blankenship (Eve Hewson) go on the run to evade Wardex CEO Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth).  Meanwhile, in another part of the US, TV meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) starts behaving erratically after a random encounter with a bird, much to the concern of her musician boyfriend, Jackson (Wyatt Russell).

Review:

If ever there was a modern director who needs no introduction, it’s arguably Steven Spielberg, the man often credited with creating the concept of a summer blockbuster movie.  But it’s been a few years since his last foray into the summer blockbuster arena (with 2018’s Ready Player One), and so the prospect of a new, big-scale, sci-fi movie from Spielberg was a very tantalising proposition.

Spielberg went to great lengths to keep the plot to Disclosure Day under wraps, so I’m not going to give anything away here – but suffice to say that you could view Disclosure Day as a spiritual sequel (but not a literal sequel) to his 1977 masterpiece Close Encounters of the Third Kind, as this film also tells a number of interconnected stories about apparently unconnected people, as the movie tackles the question of whether we are alone in the universe.  Spielberg came up with the story for Disclosure Day himself, with legendary screenwriter David Koepp joining him to write the script, and the result is a film that both feels like a continuation of Spielberg’s earlier works and a fresh and original take on the genre.

“…one of the most propulsive conspiracy thrillers of recent years…”

The catalyst for the movie’s story is the theft by Dr Daniel Kellner (played by Josh O'Connor) of secret files belonging to the mysterious Wardex Corporation, led by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth).  Exactly what is in those files, or why they’re so important to Scanlon, is not immediately apparent to the audience, as we’re thrown into events that are already in motion.  From the opening sequence of Wardex already in pursuit of Daniel, the pace in Disclosure Day rarely lets up, resulting in one of the most propulsive conspiracy thrillers of recent years.  Thankfully, Daniel’s girlfriend, Jane Blankenship (Eve Hewson) is just as in the dark about what’s going on as the viewers are, so she can act as the audience’s surrogate during the early exposition scenes.

Josh O’Connor is great in a tortured, conflicted-but-ultimately-idealistic role that reminded me of his (equally excellent) performance in Wake Up Dead Man, while Colin Fifth seems to be having fun playing slightly against type as the ruthless antagonist.  That said, I think Colin Fifth’s performance is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for his character, with some of Scanlon’s motivations and reasoning being only hinted at in the dialogue.  For me, perhaps the biggest revelation in the cast was Eve Hewson, who not only reveals hidden layers to her character as the story unfolds, but who also gives an amazing performance during a pivotal scene with Daniel and Scanlon during the middle section of the movie.

“…Spielberg has lost none of his sense of pace & tension…”

The other, initially unconnected, plot thread centres on Margaret Fairchild (played by Emily Blunt), a TV meteorologist who still doesn’t feel like she’s found her calling, much to the chagrin of her musician boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell).  Jackson is a fairly underwritten role, and I suspect the fact that an actor of the calibre of Wyatt Russell wanted to play the role is an indication of how keen people are to work with Spielberg.  Colman Domingo is another high-profile actor in a (relatively) small (but pivotal) role, and even the relatively minor roles are filled by recognisably character actors like Elizabeth Marvel.  Emily Blunt’s role, on the other hand, arguably anchors the whole movie, and she delivers a performance that evolves over the course of the film in some interesting and unpredictable ways.

As a thriller, Spielberg has lost none of his sense of pace and tension, and large sections of Disclosure Day unfold like an unrelenting chase movie, complete with a couple of great set-pieces.  Perhaps a little less effective are some of the larger themes that the film touches on – for example (and avoiding spoilers) the film touches on big questions like how would proof of the existence of extraterrestrial life impact people’s faith in religion, without ever really having the time to do anything more than skim the surface of that question.

“…the third act as a whole held plenty of surprises…”

Equally, the film is set against the backdrop of a potential World War III, but it’s so underplayed that audiences never feel the sense of urgency that was conveyed in films like The Abyss, when I remember feeling like the world really was on a knife’s edge during the events of the film (hell, even X-Men: First Class captured the dread of nuclear war more urgently than Disclosure Day).  I appreciate that the threat of WWIII is just a background element in this film – and maybe the blasé attitude that everyone has about the threat of impending global annihilation is the point being made – but I never felt that there was any real or palpable fear, as the only tangible impact it had on the plot was that the convenience stores were inundated with panic buyers.

And while we’re touching on the things that didn’t quite land, I felt the very ending of the film was a little predictable and underwhelming (although the third act as a whole still held plenty of surprises).  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily have any suggestions for how the ending could have been improved – and certain elements of it were genuinely quite emotional – but the decision to end the film when it ends just felt a little abrupt in circumstances where I would have liked it to have been able to unpack some of those larger themes and ideas that were only touched on (plus, there was a plot hole that bugged me in relation to a character that’s essentially forgotten about partway through the film, assuming I didn’t miss a line of dialogue that addressed the issue...).

“…one of Spielberg’s best films of the Twenty-First Century…”

But my quibbles are nothing more than nitpicks – and while they may mean that Disclosure Day isn’t a nailed-on, 5-star instant classic, this is still one of Spielberg’s best films of the Twenty-First Century, and well worth a watch.