Disclosure Day

Much like he did with Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg takes us on a sci-fi adventure that feels simultaneously nostalgic and eerily pertinent to the advent of AI and pervasive misinformation. Disclosure Day revisits a classic ethical dilemma: How much should the public know about national security concerns?

A thinly veiled incarnation of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and whistle-blower Edward Snowdon, Daniel (Josh O’Connor) is in possession of highly classified documents pertaining to the US government’s suppression of extraterrestrial life. Dismissed as mentally unstable by her boyfriend and TV colleagues, local weather girl Margaret (Emily Blunt) is tormented by unexplained powers that enable her to assist Daniel. Hot on their tail is Noah (Colin Firth), head of the secretive governmental agency, the Wardex corporation, which goes above and beyond the executive level. The esteemed Brit imbues the role with terrifyingly icy precision, perhaps his most menacing to date.

It harks back to 70s dystopian sci-fi like Capricorn One and Soylent Green, as well as resembling a sequel of sorts to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. True to that genre, the government is squarely the villain of the story. In the 70s, the aftermath of the Vietnam War led to disillusionment with the American dream, the scale of which had never been seen before. This gave birth to a new breed of conspiratorial sci-fi, one uniquely anti-American. It shouldn’t be shocking that, in the age of Trump 2.0, this genre would make a comeback.

As with E.T., the torture of the extraterrestrial beings is an apparent metaphor for the subaltern, all the more poignant in an era of ICE raids and war (it’s difficult to unsee parallels between emaciated alien bodies and horrific images of child war casualties shared across social media). It’s in these emotional moments where the film excels. For instance, a scene in which Margaret has a panic attack is played with devastating, raw vulnerability by Blunt, recalling her excellent work in The Smashing Machine.

And therein lies the problem. Caught between two worlds, even three, it’s an amalgamation of the best of Spielberg – sci-fi, sentimental drama, and even an Indian Jones-style train sequence. Had it stuck to one genre, without the jarring tonal shifts, it could have been up there in the pantheon of classic Spielberg works. As it is, Disclosure Day can be enjoyed as an entertaining sci-fi throwback with summer blockbuster potential.