FILM REVIEW
DISCLOSURE DAY
Rated PG-13
145 Minutes
Released June 12th
This cinematic story by Steven Spielberg comes from the heart and opens the mind to contemplation of unanswerable questions that surround our existence as human beings. How can we think we are the most intelligent form of life, worthy of our occupation of this planet? How can we possibly comprehend our universe if we can’t communicate deeply with other forms of life on Earth?
You will sense that Spielberg put a lot of thought into Disclosure Day. This is a classic Spielberg movie, envisioning the world through pure childlike innocence and peeling away the layers of overly detailed and anxious clutter we’ve layered onto our lives.
Spielberg was inspired by a 2017 NY Times article called “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: the Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program,” but his screenwriter David Koepp, who wrote 42 drafts of the script, noted, “It was something that he had carried around in his head for decades…” A further influence was US Congressional hearings in 2022-23 calling for the government to be more transparent about recorded UFO sightings.
Even without the thought-provoking philosophy behind it, this movie is gripping. It has political and corporate intrigue, mind-blowing chases, scary escapes, drama, and unexpected twists. There is such realistic video of UFO’s that I thought it might have been a government release, but declassification only happened a few days ago, and this movie was completed way before then.
Fascination with the unknown in our universe is not new for Spielberg. His now classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind, released in 1977, was the first major film to represent alien beings as potentially friendly and benign beings. Then came his legendary E.T. the Extraterrestrial in 1982. Spielberg’s work has delved into a multitude of varied genres, but he keeps returning to the question of life beyond our planet. Even as a teen, he made a little movie called Firelight about space alien visitors. Disclosure Day is a labor of love that took years to bring to fruition, and it’s our luck that, as a living legend, he can bring whatever he wants to the screen. Disclosure Day’s plot is believable, eerily familiar to our day-to-day news- the government and a powerful big tech corporation are doing everything they can to cover up the truth, even planning to eradicate people who have found out too much.
The filmmaking team assembled here is a consortium of celebrated talent. This is composer John Williams’ 30th collaboration with Spielberg, at the age of 94. Williams’ score seems to be born from the frames of the film. Film editor Sarah Broshar has been working in the editing room on Spielberg’s movies since 2011. Her ability to keep a complicated story clear and flowing is masterful. The lighting almost plays a character, highlighting the awe and the dreamlike qualities of characters and places.
The actors in this story are some of the best in their craft at conveying Spielberg’s trademark empathy, the foundation of this story. Emily Blunt is the pillar of the movie, the catalyst, a TV weather girl. The actress has a great blank canvas with this role to show emotionally subtle shading as her character, normally stoic, experiences events that would break most humans. In a scene where she begins to speak an alien language, Blunt used her own extensive vocal training to create a set of sounds and pops rather than have AI generate the language in the editing room as had been planned.
Josh O’Connor and Colman Domingo are brilliant as the ones who know too much. Colin Firth shines as the evil leader of the tech behemoth Wardex. Eve Hewson is a natural as “Jane,” the innocent drawn into the intrigue. One of the standouts in the film is Courtney Grace, in a role usually relegated to simply moving the story along, that of the news anchor. Here, the role becomes a reflection of all our emotions. Grace was a real NBC news anchor for 7 years who decided to change careers and study acting, and that was a wise choice for her. As her character is reading the news to the camera, she registers an unfathomable well of emotion. She is the bellwether for humanity in those few seconds.
Many people have had dreams or visions of alien life. I worked with a woman at the Santa Monica Library decades ago who was highly intelligent and down-to-earth. She told me, in strict confidence, a detailed story of standing on her balcony one night and witnessing a swarm of lights flying at warp speed in the night sky. Their lights were so bright she felt her eyes burning. They left as quickly as they came. She reported to the police, who referred her to a federal official who took notes on the incident and told her not to ever talk about it. The next day she went to her eye doctor for the continued pain in her eyes and found that her corneas were full of tiny holes. Fact or fiction? Spielberg opens our heads to reveal our dreams, no matter how unwieldy or deluded they may seem.
Animals are communicators in this movie. It’s instinct to talk to animals and try to mimic their voices. Why? They fascinate us. If you observe birds closely, you can tell that they have an elaborate system of communication. Are we so self-inflated that we think any structure of dialogue we don’t comprehend is inferior to ours? This movie looks at our world in a collective way and an intensely personal one at the same time, suggesting that we need to climb into the souls of other living things more often to view the world from their eyes.
We should never be afraid to know the truth. Domingo’s character says, “This 79-year cover-up of the truth has to end.” Always keep looking for the truth. It’s a plea to our society.
Grace notes of Spielberg, “it was beautiful to see how he infused so many important messages and themes in this…that’s storytelling right there.”
Domingo comments, “it’s kind of a beautiful belief for me, the idea that there’s more out there than just us, that someone’s looking out at me as I’m looking back at them.”
The screening I attended was interrupted by a shrill fire alarm two minutes before the end of the film, which seemed to play into the narrative. The world of the movie had become so real, we all just sat still for a moment believing our reality to be part of the movie. Fortunately, we were able to go back in and see the end.
“I’ve always had a core belief that we are not alone in the universe…that it would be impossible to think – and rather conceited to think – that we are the only intelligent life in the universe.” – Steven Spielberg
A dreamer or a visionary? It’s your call.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com.
