Disclosure Day: Aliens Are Among Us, and Spielberg Has Cameras Rolling
By Karen Gordon
Rating: A-
Steven Spielberg has long believed we're not alone in the universe, and maybe not even on this planet.
It’s more than random thoughts for him. Two of his most successful movies are about human-alien contact: 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1982’s ET: The Extra Terrestrial.
Aside from the human-alien theme, both of those movies have what we think of as Spielberg trademarks. They are character-focused, action-driven, and about families that have experienced some fractures like divorce.
All these things are present in Disclosure Day. It’s a hybrid: a tense, propulsive action-thriller about whistleblowers racing to reveal the truth to the public while being pursued by those determined to keep the truth hidden.
It’s also a movie about disclosure — which is the word that describes the moment when the powers that be reveal to the population at large that non-human aliens exist and there has been contact. And that’s partially because the story, created by Spielberg and written by his frequent collaborator David Koepp, is informed by UFO/UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon) lore.
That includes adults and children who believe they're abductees and conspiracy theories and beliefs about government cover-ups as well as the broader discussion about how disclosure would affect human beings around the planet, emotionally and spiritually.
The film centres on two main characters. The first is Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) a mathematical genius who, after a dozen years, has quit his job at the WARDEX corporation, where he encrypted highly sensitive files.
Shadowy WARDEX has been holding onto evidence about alien encounters going back to the Roswell incident in 1947 and has been reverse engineering the technology for various purposes, including the military. The proof of all of this is on the stolen computer files that Kellner has in his backpack.
Kellner’s not alone. He is part of a group of 12 onetime employees, led by his former boss Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo) who believe it’s time to reveal the truth to the world. But since Kellner is the one carrying the evidence, he’s the target of the head of WARDEX, Nick Scanlon (Colin Firth) and his large, well-armed security team.
Kellner is on the run with his girlfriend Jane Blankenship (Eve Hewson), a former novitiate who left the convent, but not her faith, behind. She’s about to have that tested.
In Scanlon’s arsenal is a piece of alien technology that allows him to locate someone of his choosing and physically project himself so that he appears to be in the same room. The device also lets him get inside the minds of his target and manipulate them against their well. Scanlon targets Jane, and forces her to reveal her location, and imposes an order to kill Kellner.
The second of the two main characters is Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), a slightly flighty woman who does the weather for a Kansas City television station. As she’s leaving for work one day, a red cardinal flies into the apartment and lands on the table in front of her. For a moment, the two make eye contact before the bird flies back out again.
Margaret doesn't know it yet but the encounter with the bird has flipped an internal switch and activated a deep psychic ability in her. She can suddenly speak whatever language she needs to communicate without noticing what she’s doing.
Suddenly she can see things that are troubling the people around her and offer advice in a gentle, meaningful way. That psychic sense, along with a deepening sense of confidence and compassion, gets more intense as the film goes on.
She gets to the studio in time to go on air, but instead of words, what comes out are a series of clicks before she collapses. The footage goes viral, and comes to the attention of Wakefield, who has been aware that Kellner has a partner in what is to come, and has been waiting for her to reveal herself. He sends the video to Kellner, who understands Margaret’s apparent gibberish.
Margaret finds herself being pulled to travel in a certain direction. After a call from Wakefield, she’s driven to find Kellner, guided by this psychic ability that is so strong and assured that she is compelled to follow it.
And so, the chase is on from multiple directions. Kellner being led by Wakefield to a specific destination, sometimes helped by one of their drivers. Margaret trying to find Kellner. None of them armed. And the armed WARDEX baddies are in hot pursuit trying to retrieve the backpack and eliminate anyone who has knowledge of what’s happening.
The film has its flaws. It feels a bit too binary: good guys and bad guys and very similar in tone to the family and kids in ET versus the government officials, whose mission to capture ET overruled their basic empathy, and were therefore somewhat cartoonish. Even the most exciting chase scene in Disclosure Day has our heroes pursued by a villainous character who feels like a Bond villain.
It does however set the life-and-death stakes, like any good thriller.
The rest of what we see — the images and videos that Kellner is carrying, Margaret and Kellner’s memories of their childhood abduction involving animals and a sensation of walking through walls — are based on true stories, as followers of UFO/UAP revelations will know.
Ditto the questions about the impact of disclosure on ordinary people. What would it mean to humans who believe in God if we're not the only beings in the universe? Jane puts the question to the Mother Superior at her former convent.
The world that Spielberg and Koepp give us is on the brink of something terrible. Lots of people are talking, but no one is listening. It doesn't feel very far from where things are now.
And that raises another question common among UFO/UAP communities: If we found out we were not alone on the planet or in the universe, how would we react? Would it create panic? Violence? Or would it be elevating? Could it be the thing that finally makes our species see beyond what tears us apart, instead uniting us?
Disclosure Day weaves these ideas and more into what seems to be a straightforward action film with some sci-fi elements. And given that this is Steven Spielberg, he doesn't give us answers but leaves us with some hopeful things to contemplate.
Disclosure Day. Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by David Koepp. Starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, and Eve Hewson. In theatres June 12.