Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Eve Hewson
Sometimes, when I’m watching a movie in the cinema and I’ve grown tired and sleepy – usually factors other than the film itself, but not always… – I’ll press my thumbnail into the soft flesh of my index finger like a needle prick to regain my focus. It’s probably not the wisest course of action, but it can help bring me out of the spiral that leads to the dreaded nap.
Maybe veteran screenwriter David Koepp does this too, as a more extreme variation of this technique comes into play during his latest effort for longtime collaborator Steven Spielberg, as one character in particularly uses self-harm to remain themselves against the threat of invasive forces. One thing’s for sure, however, I had no need for this circumspect fallback during Disclosure Day, a film which – for better and worse – kept my mind alert and active as it rushed before me like a frieght train.
In the relatively early days of his inimitable career, Spielberg’s imaginings of aliens helped define the sentimental benevolence of his blockbuster filmmaking, from the overtures of Close Encounters of a Third Kind to the outstretched fingers of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. It was only in the new century and the aftermath of 9/11 that this vision reconfigured into the reactive anger, fright and pessimism of his version of War of the Worlds*. Call it the George W. Bush effect. What now, then? What now with Trump and ICE and every other inhuman thing America thrusts upon the world? Disclosure Day‘s secretive arrival is almost threatening. Which Spielberg are we getting?
It’s present day and we jump right into the middle of the story. Mathematics savant and cyber specialist Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) has already filched a vast wealth of data from his shady employer WARDEX (Wave Reporting Development & Extraction), an autonomous shadow government dedicated exclusively to covering up the existence of alien life. He and his clueless girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) are on the run from WARDEX’s Machiavellian CEO Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), who is ready to use everything at his disposal to shutdown Daniel’s whistle-blowing goal. Concurrently, Kansas City weather reporter Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) gives new meaning to the phrase “A little birdie told me” as she starts psychically receiving seemingly extra-terrestrial information, compelled into a meet-up with Daniel whom she gravitates toward like a human magnet. All this against a pensive backdrop of imminent global war between the superpowers.
Oft imitated but seldom captured, that maverick Spielbergian magic is channelled everywhere. Thanks to his continuing collab with cinematographer Janusz Kamiński there’s a visual energy and creativity that works in tandem with the warm streaks of optimistic sentimentalism that Koepp ladles into the screenplay, based on a story outline handed to him by the director. Disclosure Day feels like a concerted effort to play the hits. But Spielberg is more versatile than one realises, and channelling a little of everything into one movie as though it’s an all-encompassing swan song (a role filled beautifully by The Fabelmans) gives the film a flighty, schizophrenic edge and some tonal dissonance.
The imminence of World War Three in the background is an evident shortcut to conveying the kind of bleak collective fear we’re all feeling right now for more complex reasons, but the intention of Spielberg’s extra-terrestrial visitors isn’t convincingly woven into the movie to supplant it as a global concern. Disclosure Day is extremely keen on facilitating the wonder of believing in aliens from outer space. Wonder being this filmmaker’s favourite emotional tool. But while we’re in the more benevolent sphere of Close Encounters and E.T. his little grey men are still abducting and traumatising children. The lines aren’t black and white. Their side of the story never makes it to camera.
Daniel’s quest to expose the truth and Jane’s lapsed religious background draws uncanny parallels to the dynamic between Mulder and Scully in The X-Files and, with a shady government outfit nipping at their heels, the overarching resemblance is persistent. He feels, she questions. The key difference is that Daniel and Jane are civilians. The power dynamic is very much the little guys versus that might and malevolence of a mandate both state and corporate. Big versus small. They are guided, however, by Colman Domingo’s mysterious Hugo, a kind of avuncular black ops Anneka Rice who is seen throughout the first two acts wandering a mysteriously elaborate set in the process of construction, like an avatar for Spielberg himself. He turns out to be the film’s spurious godhead, conveniently capable of just about anything, parcelling out exposition when it best serves the story. I was fully expecting him to turn out to be an alien in a man suit.
Thank the heavens (or those in the heavens) for Blunt’s Margaret (named as a nod to ’70s/’80s glamourpuss Morgan Fairchild, perhaps?) who, along with her baffled boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell) inject Disclosure Day with bags of comedic heart. Margaret dreams of becoming a serious news anchor, and her audition tape exhibits a cloying earnestness that Blunt herself only occasionally slips into. But, for the most part, these two provide the sugar against the greyer tones of this conspiracy tale. Margaret’s emerging superpower even appears to be the manipulation of sentimentality in others (Koepp getting metatextual on his boss?). As they are drawn to their destination by forces locked within Margaret’s forgotten past, Disclosure Day takes on the shape of a sci-fi road movie, conjuring as it does Close Encounters, but also Jeff Nichols’ underseen Midnight Special as well as John Carpenter’s Starman. There’s also a flavour of James Cameron’s The Abyss, albeit a landlocked iteration criss-crossing the American heartland.
Those eager for the action setpieces of Spielberg of old are handed a brief, effective stunt involving a train, but this isn’t the movie’s main modus operandi, and feels a little like Koepp going down his aforementioned checklist of what A Spielberg Movie needs. Ultimately it’s just a little out of place, much like Margaret’s one token F-bomb that occurs just moments before it (just because you’re allowed one in a 12A movie doesn’t mean you have to – not that I’m against it, it just feels clunky here). Cruising through some wildly different sensibilities – from the dour to the childlike in some of the more fantastic stretches – the Spielberg title that Disclosure Day ultimately cleaves closest to is A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. An evidently ambitious sci-fi piece that also dearly remembers storybook narratives and books at bedtime.
And, finally, it is all about Telling. And because this is a movie, Telling through Showing. Spielberg remains a master at showing, and shows off so many wondrous little moments along the way here. The culmination of the film, however, inevitably hands off to the world at large. It’s slightly unfortunate that this means much of the last ten minutes falls into the hands of a character we’ve previously not encountered who has an incredibly hard time articulating anything. This, along with a bewildering reveal right before it, ends Disclosure Day on a tonally and narratively confused set of notes. There’s also a great deal to nitpick on the way to this finale (WARDEX is home to some of the most bafflingly inept foot soldiers this side of Star Wars).
But the wonder is there. The saucer-eyed wonder of Spielberg of old is most definitely felt. Even if, sometimes, it feels like it’s been shoved forcibly through the door having missed a cue. Quite whether a young modern audience wowed by the eerie disquiet of Obsession and Backrooms will turn up for it, however, is another matter…
*I’ve sort of forgotten Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull but can you blame me?
The Lost Highway Hotel 