DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
CAST: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 79% Certified Fresh
PLOT: A cyber-security expert goes on the run from his own shadowy employer; a TV weatherperson exhibits odd behavior after a close encounter with a cardinal; and an 80-year-old secret ties them both together.
[THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.]
First of all, yes, I’m late to the party for this one, but I didn’t feel qualified to write a review after watching this the first time in June, and I didn’t get around to watching it again until last night.
Second, I am a Gen-Xer whose adolescent life was irrevocably impacted by the films of Steven Spielberg, starting with Jaws (1975) through to Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List (both 1993). I know enough to realize that his body of work is not perfect, but I am a fervent admirer, so if some of that bias comes through in this review, c’est la vie.
Disclosure Day, released when Spielberg was 79 years old, is so full of ideas that the weight of them occasionally threatens to derail the film’s momentum in some earlier passages, and makes some of the later “revelations” a little less wondrous than they might have been if I had seen this movie when I was a pre-teen or teenager. But the headlong energy of Spielberg’s direction and the powerhouse acting on display from Emily Blunt swept me along and kept me (mostly) breathless for nearly two-and-a-half hours. This should go at or near the top of anyone’s list of “thinking-man’s thrillers.”
(I won’t bother summarizing the plot…I’m just going to assume you’ve seen the movie. If you haven’t, apologies for any spoilers below.)
My favorite aspect of this film is the way it draws straight connecting lines between its sci-fi elements and their religious counterparts, much like The Matrix did in 1999 and Contact did in 1997. Does that make Disclosure Day an unoriginal rehash of similar ideas from thirty years ago? Absolutely not. The fact that everything is filtered through the Spielberg lens permeates every scene, reminding me that this story of paradigm-shifting contact with extra-terrestrials is being presented by the man who brought us Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). I got the feeling that Disclosure Day is loaded with things that Spielberg has wanted to say for a long time. I don’t know if that’s factually true, but that’s what it feels like.
I grew up in a Baptist Christian home from kindergarten through four years of Christian college. This movie spoke to me in a way that Contact touched on, but much more directly. At one point, the character Jane Blankenship (Eve Hewson) asks a nun: “If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, PROVED it to you…would that frighten you?” Contact has a theoretical answer which seemed pretty reasonable, but Disclosure Day adds an extra dimension by asking this question to a nun, whose conviction that we are, in fact, NOT alone is central to her identity. (She has a great answer that I won’t spoil here.)
I wondered about this question. Any religion I can think of is centrally based on faith, which, according to the book of Hebrews, is “the evidence of things not seen.” Well…would happen if, one day, at the Vatican or Jerusalem or Mecca, the clouds parted, the skies opened up, and a celestial figure descended to Earth and told everyone present that, yes, I am God, you’ve been right this entire time, congratulations. How would the faithful react? I believe many would bow or kneel and weep with joy…but would they ALL react that way? Might there be some who became even more fearful than before? Would some believers rebel at the thought that faith is no longer needed? After all, there He is.
This question occupied my mind for weeks and months after watching Disclosure Day for the first time. I drew parallels between religion and the belief in extra-terrestrial life. If someone proved to me, PROVED it beyond the shadow of a doubt, that alien civilizations are real and have been visiting Earth since 1947…how would I respond? Would I rejoice in the fact that something I’ve hoped for since childhood was actually proven correct? Or would this revelation make me feel even smaller compared to the vast cosmos? If I had that kind of information, would it be my responsibility to tell everyone, to spread the word, as it were? Or would it be more prudent to keep that information to myself, lest it create a panic?
When a movie makes me ask those kinds of questions, without necessarily providing stone-cold answers, I celebrate it. Too many films lose faith in the viewer’s intelligence from the get-go. Spielberg never talks down to his audience with this film. Right from the beginning, he and screenwriter David Koepp demonstrate their trust in the audience’s ability to keep up by starting the movie in the middle of the action. No set-up, no narrated prologue, just boom, here’s a guy with a backpack getting kidnapped and there’s his girlfriend and why is everyone scared of a stick of silver metal and who are these people, anyway?
Watching this movie a second time, I was once again blown away by Emily Blunt’s performance. I am not 100% sure she’ll get an Oscar nomination or anything, but she is heartbreaking when she acquires these abilities she can’t understand or explain, then breaks down late in the film when others look to her as some kind of spiritual figure. She doesn’t like these abilities. She doesn’t WANT these abilities, and she certainly doesn’t want anyone revering her because of them. “I will NOT be anyone’s religion!” she cries out, and I was immediately reminded of the Biblical story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, raging against God for forcing Him to go through the unimaginable trials to come.
There are many other scientific/religious parallels in the film. Even the concept of demon possession comes into play when the main bad guy, Scanlon (Colin Firth), is able to “dive” on people remotely, either speaking to them across vast distances or able to literally control their bodies. When Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo) explains to someone that the aliens believe that empathy is the highest form of evolution, as a former practicing Christian, how could I not think of the Golden Rule? (“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”)
On the surface, Spielberg is asking people to consider the idea that alien life need not be a scary proposition (War of the Worlds [2005] notwithstanding, of course). Below the surface – not exactly hidden, of course – he’s asking us to consider the idea that empathy for our fellow man could literally save the world. Impractical? Maybe. But a hopeful message regardless.
Disclosure Day is a worthy addition to Spielberg’s impressive filmography, and one of my new favorite films, not because it’s as thrilling as a roller coaster (which some parts of it are), but because it’s as cerebral and rewarding as solving a crossword puzzle in pen.
