Spielberg's greatest hits? Disclosure Day aims for the wonder of Close Encounters and the warmth of E.T. but also leans into the darker Sci-Fi of A.I. and Minority Report. The film weaves between chase sequences to quiet moments of fragile emotion.
The film's central premise is an intriguing one: What happens on the day we learn extraterrestrial life exists? After 80 years of endless UFO reports, accusations of coverups, and endless material for pop culture through the decades. Has the time arrived? There's an exhaustion with all the cultural mythology running through the film. Do people, outside of passionate fringe groups, even care about the UFO phenomenon anymore?
Critics will dismiss Disclosure Day as a 21st century film consumed with 20th century obsessions. The landing of the mothership in Close Encounters awed audiences in 1977 but will likely generate a collective meh from today's generation.
While the culture might've moved on from blockbuster spectacles, filmmaking still matters and Spielberg's incredible mastery of the medium is on display. We're in Spielberg land: lens flares, smooth camera movements, bluish sheens, lots of awestruck close ups. Watching characters monologue to John Williams cues is nostalgia itself. In one scene, Emily Blunt's character makes an emotional breakthrough, I can't imagine any other director handling it with more grace than Spielberg.
The two leads in the cast are Josh O'Conner as an idealistic whistleblower and Emily Blunt as a newscaster who suddenly gains remarkable cognitive abilities. Colin Firth takes a villainous turn as a cover up artist for a mysterious corporation (echoes of Patrick McGoohan in Scanners). Colman Domingo is the spiritual center of the film, analogous to Francois Truffaut in Close Encounters.
The emotional highpoint arrives around the 2/3 point; the last section is a gesture towards spectacle. It's a tough call, the film definitely goes for wonder, but it falters into a popular mode from the analogue era. Contact (1997) engaged deeply with the humanistic questions of Extraterrestrial life, while Arrival (2016) focused on communication, Disclosure Day is ultimately a Sci-Fi thriller. Big questions are set aside, preference is given to the emotional journey.
Like Close Encounters, the themes are humanistic. Empathy is front and center and channels a longing for human connection. Disclosure Day plays like a synthesis film, specifically in relation to E.T. and Close Encounters. The X-Files is also a major influence. Many other films have pondered the implications of discovering aliens, Disclosure Day is a story about the actual moment it happens. What would you do?
Spielberg knows how to take audiences for a ride; the journey is more important than the destination. We also see people connecting - the longing for transcendence is also a recurring theme. The film's journey is emotional, not intellectual - and unabashedly cinematic.
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