“People have a right to know the truth. It belongs to 7 billion people.”
Regardless of what the frenetic state of the current weather is telling us, Summer is finally here. Before I continue, I’m going to try not to get all nostalgic about what movies used to be during this time of year, but Disclosure Day, the new offering from Steven Spielberg, is exactly what movies used to be. Releases like this one used to be events that were built on a special breed of anticipation where no one in the audience knew what they were getting despite various levels of marketing engineered to drum up lots of excitement. If there’s anyone still capable of conveying that kind of experience today, it’s certainly Spielberg. How delighted I am to report that Disclosure Day is not only the first great movie of the summer, it’s also one of the year’s best and proves that the director’s imagination still has plenty of places it wants to venture to.
In Disclosure Day, a top tech expert named Daniel (Josh O’Connor) has made off with a bevy of classified documents that give definable, undeniable proof of extra-terrestrial life in the universe. With the top secret organization he once worked for out to capture him, Daniel and his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) find themselves on the run. Meanwhile, an on-air meteorologist from Kansas City named Margaret (Emily Blunt) starts experiencing strange behavior within herself, including knowing the thoughts of everyone she encounters, whether she’s met them before or not. Eventually, Daniel and Margaret’s fates collide, and they join forces along with Hugo (Colman Domingo), Daniel’s ally, to ward off their former boss, Noah (Colin Firth), from getting the proof back from them before it can be disclosed to the world.
From the opening moments of Disclosure Day, we’re hooked, and to be fair, we don’t have much time not to be. The director plunges us right into the story as soon as the title disappears from the screen. From there, it’s action-driven energy that’s palpable in every frame. It’s the kind of energy that Marvel has spent years dulling, but now is back and radiating off the screen tenfold. The result, at least in my screening, was an audience so absorbed that virtually no one dared move. Perhaps the biggest reason for this kind of audience reaction is that Disclosure Day‘s plot is one that remains shrouded in mystery, from Margaret’s ability to know the inner thoughts of everyone she comes into contact with to what it was Daniel actually saw that made him want to expose everything, to how far Noah will go to keep it hidden, and how Hugo will aid in it all. As the puzzle pieces keep falling into place, Spielberg the storyteller continues to flourish in ways that feel both familiar and innovative. You can really feel the playfulness and the curiosity scene after scene, especially in the heightened set pieces, which include three pulsating escapes (the third being the unquestionable best, the stunning sudden appearance of a crop circle, and a sequence involving Noah extracting information from Jane that is positively hypnotic. Despite some lesser efforts on occasion, Spielberg was never a director who could ever be accused of being asleep at the wheel. Yet he hasn’t felt this alive in years.
I do wish that more was being made of the highly significant fact that Disclosure Day represents one of the rare times that we are treated to an original story by Spielberg himself. The Fabelmans aside, the director hasn’t been in touch with this side of himself as a storyteller in many years. It’s also the return to this specific part of his artistry that’s responsible for many of this movie’s captivating moments. The many elements of wonder and amazement echo those of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, while the thrill of the movie’s chase scenes feels like a heightened version of The Sugarland Express. Regardless of what kind of scene is playing out at any one given moment, the movie feels uniquely him. Nowhere is this more true than when Disclosure Day goes into a ponderous mode that goes refreshingly beyond the surface level of explaining what’s actually happening here, and why. This is a more philosophical Spielberg asking the age old question: Are we really alone in the universe? His answer via the movie is a mixing of faith and belief that’s expressed through each character in surprising ways. At the same time, Spielberg is also giving an illustration of trauma that feels sensitive, singular, and sees the director at one of his most human instances. The fact that Disclosure Day is able to capture incredibly rich emotions through deeply intimate moments in the midst of a story with such a huge scope is nothing short of extraordinary.
Blunt has never been better. There’s so much for her to work with here, especially when it comes to Margaret burying the pain of her past with her relentless need to keep building the perfect future. It’s a stunning, captivating, emotional turn from the actress that should be rightfully remembered come awards time. O’Connor also surprises by once again taking on a role that’s unlike anything he’s done before, perfectly conveying Daniel’s desperation and determination, which never wavers, despite the many obstacles that come his way. Elsewhere, Firth and Domingo excel as the two figures in charge who are at opposite ends of the effort when it comes to the truth and the power it possesses. The movie allows both of them moments of craftiness and vulnerability. Finally, Hewson enjoys her best screen role to date as Jane, a young woman who finds herself torn between what she’s always believed to be true and what that truth means to her now. Seeing the actress play the character’s internal struggle is simply beautiful.
As much as I’m praising Spielberg (and deservedly so) for delivering to us one of the year’s best, I also want to give a shout-out to screenwriter David Koepp. Although he’s been an industry stalwart for decades now, he still remains curiously underrated in certain ways. He’s more than proven himself over the years with titles, excuse me, classics, such as Death Becomes Her, Mission: Impossible, Stir of Echoes, Panic Room, and Zathura. Even dire misfires like The Shadow, The Mummy, and the last two Indiana Jones (well, maybe not Dial of Destiny) still hold small glimmers of inspiration in the midst of their misguided executions. Throughout all of them, and especially here, Koepp has shown his versatility as a storyteller time and time again. Disclosure Day is the writer’s fifth collaboration with Spielberg, and with so many milestones between the two of them (both together and separately), you could say that maybe the best is yet to come. Personally, I don’t know how the two of them could top this.
