By Matthew Moorcroft

Strong Recommendation

• Directed by Steven Spielberg
• Starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo
• PG-13

Launching you straight into a conspiracy thriller where the ultimate question is less about what the conspiracy and more about the aftershocks, Disclosure Day is Spielberg, in some ways, returning to old ground. This isn’t his first rodeo with aliens, let alone ones where the entire premise is built on the idea of their existence being a government kept secret. But Spielberg, who has been trailing similar thematic threads over the decades in a filmography that is remarkably cohesive in ideas, is also far older and more reflective then he used to be. He’s not the same optimist he was once before – if he ever really was, if The Fabelmans is truly any indication.

As such, Disclosure Day is a far stranger and more dense beast then you would expect from a, on the surface, marquee blockbuster. It’s more focused on big ideas and esoteric concepts about the nature of faith and our place in the universe in the midst of society unraveling, and whether or not people at large still have it in their hearts to find empathy in each other.

If any of this sounds hooky to you, then Disclosure Day is probably immediately going to likely annoy you. While Disclosure Day isn’t exactly a fully optimistic film, leaning far more in line tonally with Spielberg’s early 2000s work like Minority Report or even War of the Worlds, it still has the sense that Spielberg wants to see the best in people and the rest of the world. The world at large might not care as much anymore that aliens might exist, but Spielberg sure as hell thinks that the fact they might exist as mattering regardless.

And that’s the conundrum of Disclosure Day‘s story in general even in universe, which plays it’s hand pretty much right away about it being an alien story. Instead, Disclosure Day‘s tension comes from the characters being unsure about what will actually happen once that information comes out, and whether or not that’s actually a good thing. World War III is on the verge of breaking out here, and it’s clear that people are more divided then ever in an era of misinformation and apathy. Our villains, an off the book government organization dedicated to alien research, wants to keep the information secret as they believe the public would panic and things will only get worse. Our heroes believe in the power of collective knowledge, even if their methods are unorthodox. And there is a higher power calling to them, guiding them along.

Make no mistake, it’s certainly a bit clunky. Disclosure Day‘s script has so many moving parts that it’s juggling that it’s inevitable that some bits and pieces are more interesting then others. The film, frankly, is at it’s best when it’s focused on Emily Blunt’s Margaret, who is struggling with the sudden emergence of latent psychic abilities that she seemingly has no control over. Much of this is due to Blunt’s incredible work in front of the camera here, whose naturalistic take on the material grounds the otherwise fantastical nature of her situation in a very real, palpable way.

Behind the camera, it’s clear that the other star is Spielberg himself. With some of his most inventive camera work yet – which is saying something considering his career up to this point – Disclosure Day is never short of marvelous to look at and there are entire sequences that are jaw dropping in terms of staging. A particular one take in the middle of the picture involving Josh O’Connor’s unfournately somewhat more bland (if still likable and well acted) whistleblower is of particular note here, but the film has so many great bits of motion in how it composes a frame that you start to wonder why every single film isn’t looking like this.

And just when you think the movie isn’t working anymore, the film reaches it’s final act and the gloves completely come off. The last act of the film is probably smaller scale then most would expect but it’s an extraordinary piece of filmmaking in a film that admittedly takes a while to get to that point; a beautifully humanist piece of art that dares say that yes, we actually can come together for important things if we just sat down and listened. It might be preaching into the void for some, but for many it will be a message that will be heard loud and clear.

That is the reason why Disclosure Day ultimately works at all. Is the dialogue sometimes a little off? Sure. Does the film’s many moving parts sometimes mean it’s spinning it’s wheels getting to from point to point? Sometimes. But it’s also Spielberg at his most Spielbergian, even down to the magnificent John Williams score that blares through the speakers and feels almost like heaven itself has found it’s voice. It’s a classic Hollywood flick in a modern Hollywood coat of paint with a future Hollywood perspective, and that’s something we just aren’t ever likely to get again, even from the master himself.