Spoilers!
I’m not sure in a fractured, decentralized society (meaning here, lack of information gatekeepers), even the disclosure of aliens existing could bring everyone together into the glow of their screens. I’m also not convinced that the United States government, working in conjunction with a private company, could keep it a secret for 79 years. Nonetheless, Steven Spielberg’s force-of-will vision of such a society is spellbinding in his latest film, 2026’s Disclosure Day. David Koepp, Spielberg’s longtime screenwriter on projects, such as Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, provides the script treatment for his story. For reasons I’ll expand upon below, the power of Spielberg, and especially Emily Blunt’s performance, helped the movie to rise above a somewhat shallow script. I was in full-on goosebump mode by the end, completely captivated.
I didn’t expect a Spielberg movie to start with a professional wrestling match, but that’s the opening of the film and where Wardex has found Daniel Kellner (played by Josh O’Connor). The two professional wrestlers with AEW, I believe, are Lance Archer and Brian Cage; good for them! For reasons that aren’t fully explored, the world is on the precipice of World War III, with Russia and North Korea on the move, and Daniel, a cybersecurity mathematician whiz, who has turned a whistleblower against Wardex, has stolen something of significance. Because of the trailers and the way they are treating a specific piece of technology that Daniel has in his possession, we already know it’s extraterrestrial in nature. Does that make this, what, the fourth time Spielberg has explored aliens in his films? I think WWII is the only subject that would match it. The CEO of Wardex, Noah Scanlon (played by Colin Firth), is personally on the scene to capture Daniel. In fact, he’s brought Daniel’s girlfriend, Jane (played by Eve Hewson), to induce Daniel’s surrender. Thanks to the alien technology, Daniel and Jane are able to escape. They are also working with Hugo Wakefield (played by Colman Domingo, who is having quite the year between this, Michael, and the second season of Four Seasons), also a whistleblower from Wardex, who seems to know more about what is going on than Daniel does.
Meanwhile, the scene-stealer the moment we cut to her, Blunt’s Margaret Fairchild, is a Kansas City meteorologist, who is getting ready for her day with her boyfriend, when a red cardinal flies into her kitchen. She’s mesmerized. From then on, she’s been transformed into almost like a seer. She starts speaking in a foreign language, baffling the boyfriend. Then, she’s off to do the weather. Her first “trick” as a seer, naturally, is to get out of a speeding ticket. When the news station goes live with her weather report, Margaret makes these indecipherable guttural utterances and collapses. I should say, not indecipherable to Daniel, who hears them as English: Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know. Wardex realizes she has a connection to the aliens, too, and begin trying to apprehend her. She’s able to escape, though, and then, thankfully, leaves her boyfriend behind to rendezvous with Daniel at the behest of Hugo. Honestly, whenever Blunt wasn’t on the screen, I was waiting for her return. I thought she was that captivating.
But still, I was obviously invested in Daniel revealing what he knew to Jane. For her part, Jane turns out to be a former almost-nun, which we found out because they hide out momentarily at a monastery. She provides the opposing argument to Daniel, which is almost what Wardex would have argued: humanity isn’t ready to know about extraterrestrials, especially at such a fractious time. But her angle is different, thinking it would completely upend people’s belief in God and spiritually confound them for their to be something of similar (or greater) power to God. That confused me a bit because I don’t think it was necessarily established that these were godlike entities who people would create whole new religions around. Sure, a small fraction of humanity might because that’s just what we do, and indeed, one woman crosses herself and bows before Margaret toward the end of the film, with Margaret replying, “I don’t want to be anyone’s religion.” But I didn’t see anything up to that point to indicate they were that powerful.
Here’s my unambiguous rule of thumb, though, regarding the argument Daniel and Jane have: disclosure. I’m with Daniel. We can’t gatekeep knowledge and information nor control how people react to such information nor should we try. As one of Jane’s nuns (and mentor?) later explains to Jane, it isn’t that she ever lost her faith in God; she lost her faith in people. Moreover, to the other argument, the nun clarifies to Jane that God make us special here on Earth, leaving open the possibility that He made other special creatures to populate the vast universe. Where I’m more skeptical of Daniel’s gameplan is the dissemination. His thinking goes, if he can only get broadcast news to broadcast all the files he has of aliens being discovered at Roswell in 1947, along with other file footage — which would thereafter get disseminated to national news and then global news — then people will know the truth about aliens. But I don’t think humans are so linear with their information intake like that! This isn’t a Jane-like lack of faith in humanity, but humans would rightly be skeptical of what they are seeing. As some of the broadcast technicians wonder, is this A.I.? How can we verify that what we’re seeing is real? Even the incredible, goosebump-inducing moment at the end where an actual alien is wheeled into the Kansas City news studio by Hugo and his team to say something to Daniel and Margaret, I’m sure people would dispute it. But, as I said, we can’t gatekeep that, either. People doubt the moon landing still or the results of the 2020 American presidential election. It is what it is, and so it would be with aliens.
Once Daniel and Margaret were together (a bit amusing that two British actors had to use American accents; at least Firth was able to stay British!), their scenes were great, resulting in perhaps the best action sequence of the film involving their car nearly being run over by a train and them making their just-in-time escape via the train itself. Following that up, Margaret has a panic attack, which was the peak point of Blunt’s phenomenal acting in this film. Also, a heck of a year for her with the sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, which she was also good in. The film had quite a few great action sequences, though, including at a farmhouse with Daniel and Jane, and then later at the warehouse with the “invisible” firetruck.
Toward the end of the film, we learn that Daniel and Margaret were abducted by the aliens and chosen to convey their messages. Speaking of which, what did the alien whisper to Daniel, who then relayed it in English to Margaret? “Listen.” Which concluded the film.
The reason I said Koepp’s script is admittedly shallow is because of my dispute of the two major premises I mentioned at the start, but also, I thought Jane’s argument was rather weak as a counter to Daniel, and even Noah didn’t have a strong argument other than “we’re a fractious world.” Hugo argued he wanted the power and money, which would be a likely motive, of course. I also was surprised, and I don’t know if this is from Koepp’s script or not, that the aliens were the stereotypical depiction of aliens we’ve seen for, well, 79 years or so! Maybe that’s intentional. However, as I also said, Spielberg being who he is as a director, coupled with Blunt’s performance, kept me fully invested throughout the 145-minute runtime. When the alien appeared in the newsroom, I was fully in goosebump mode. I loved it. Indeed, I love to imagine the world could come together around such a singular moment. And maybe it would engender a peace of a kind instead of WWIII or other calamities in response.
While not my favorite movie I’ve seen so far at the theater this year, Disclosure Day was a worthwhile time and well-worth seeing.
Milam's Musings 