Film Review: Disclosure Day

 

Sexuality/Nudity Mature

Violence Acceptable

Vulgarity Acceptable

Anti-Catholic Philosophy Mature

I have said it before and I will say it again: Steven Spielberg is the greatest director of all time.  

But that doesn't mean that every movie he makes is good.

And that is the case with Disclosure Day.

The movie centers around two main characters.  The movie begins with Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor), a computer specialist who has stolen something valuable from a shady organization led by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), who has kidnapped Daniel's girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson).  This leads to a chase through the country where Daniel constantly calls his leader Hugo (Colman Domingo) for instructions to stay one step ahead.  Meanwhile, TV weatherwoman Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) is having breakfast with her boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell) when a cardinal flies into their apartment.  After that, she begins to display clairvoiant powers and is also pursued by Scanlon's people.  Eventually the two stories converge as it leads to a world-changing event.

On paper, this sounds like the makings of a fascinating film.  But the movie just falls short.  It wants to explore big ideas, but it does it in such a shallow way that it doesn't work.

The action of the script makes almost no sense.  Characters say and do things that follow no real logical reasoning, but are done simply to move the story forward.  It feels almost like Spielberg wanted to talk about the big themes and the plot was a kind of afterthought, a nuisance that had to be dealt with in order to talk about his "big ideas."  But that is the core problem of the film.

Even as a devout Christian, I usually detest Christian movies.  It is not because I disagree with the themes or content.  The problem is that they aren't really movies; they are sermons dressed up like they are narratives.  It is absolutely true that your movie's theme is ultimately what your story is about.  But if you preach your theme rather than embed it into the plot, then you've compromised your art.  And that is exactly what Spielberg does here with Disclosure Day.  It is a Christian movie, except that you should replace Christ with aliens.

It is difficult to discuss the movie's shortcomings without getting into spoiler territory, but I will do my best to be as vague as possible.  But be warned:

SPOILERS AHEAD.

The movie is ultimately about the disclosure to the world that aliens exist.  Spielberg wants this movie to be a mediation on what this kind of revelation would do to the world.  But he builds the entire story to this revelation and he makes the reaction so incredibly uninteresting.

He wants to explore what would happen to people with religious faith if they found out that aliens were real.  We find out early on that Jane used to be a novice religious sister.  Now before I move on, I have to voice something which is a horrible pet peeve of mine.  It explicitly states in the movie that Daniel and Jane are engaging in a sexual relationship outside of marriage, and yet Jane is set up to be the main voice of the religious perspective.  It reminds me of the movie Contact, where the main Christian antagonist has sex with the protagonist and is lying in bed with her afterwards talking about his faith in God.  I find this so distasteful and a slap in the face to real-life Christians.  To be sure, we are all sinners and we all fall short.  My objection is not that movies like this depict believers committing sin.  My problem is that it depicts believers embracing sin as a fully integrated into their lives and then presenting that as the example of Christian living.  But I digress.

Anyway, Jane is supposed to be the voice of the Christian, but her theology is so shallow that it is almost laughable.  She says that disclosing the aliens would be horrible because it would telling people who believe in God that there are other "Supreme Beings."  Again, I don't mean to theologically nitpick, but what the hell does this even mean?  Even in the realm of science fiction, this isn't really an issue. I never saw an episode where Kirk felt the need to worship Spock.  Just because a species is technologically more advanced than we are, it does not therefore make them "Supreme Beings."  God is the Supreme Being because He is That Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived.  Not a single one of the aliens presented in this movie comes anywhere close to that.  What Christian would think this way outside of this script?  To be fair, her former superior Sister Maura (Elizabeth Marvel) has a more mature take on Christianity and aliens, but it feels too little too late.

Because of this, Jane is able to be swayed by the influence of Scanlon's mind control device.  From this point on, she is nothing but a problem and adds nothing really to the story.  Again, this parallel to Christian movies is strong: because she lacks faith in the aliens, she is subject to demonic influence.  In fact, the entire movie is like that.  Daniel constantly contacts Hugo begging to be given shelter and protection, but is repeatedly told that it isn't the right time.  In other words, he has to have faith that the aliens know what they are doing.  

Whenever the story writes itself into a corner, a miracle occurs.  That is not an exaggeration.  Margaret's new powers give her prophetic visions and then channels the dead loved ones of the villains to save the day.  In another example of the Christian illteracy of the story, when Margaret ends up with the alien-friendly group, one of them genuflects in front of her and does the sign of the cross.  She then shouts, "I will not be anyone's religion!"  Again, what Christian would worship the creature rather than the Creator?  And if the point is that the worshipper is not a Christian because they are believing in the aliens, then why do the SIGN OF THE CROSS?

If I wanted to be really mean to the movie, I could make a long list of all the contrivances and inanities in the plot, all the way down to the fact that Jane ends up saving the day by literally just walking past the bad guys and handing something to Margaret.  It's like the movie forgot that she was being chased by the very people that are surrounding Margaret to prevent her from disclosing the aliens.

There are only a few things that prevent this movie from devolving into a total disaster.  The first is that when Spielberg actually decides to entertain rather than lecture, the movie does well.  There is an incredibly chase scene involving a train that feels like vintage Spielberg.  There is also a moment where Margaret turns the good guys invisible that is filmed with tension, humor, and fun in the way Spielberg could do in his Indiana Jones movies.

The other things is that the performances are generally good.  O'Connor plays the in-over-his-head everyman very well.  Blunt does a good job of showing the internal revolution in her mind as it plays out in the world around her.  Firth is decent as the bad guy, but there isn't a lot for him to work with. The same thing is true of Domingo, who is there to be a calm center of faith in the film.  He feels like a Spielberg self-insert, who is literally directing the events of movie.

Also, Spielberg had the chance to do the funniest things in the world, but chose not to.  At the end of the movie, we finally have one of the aliens revealed.  At first he is obscured by a covering, but then we see him fully.  If that alien turned out to be ET, I would have laughed so hard and that would have been worth the price of admission.  But no, the alien is as generic as can be.  And the resolution of the struggle against the antagonist is so odd, it is like nothing I have ever seen in a movie.  I literally turned to my wife in the theater and said, "That's it?"

Steven Spielberg decided to de-emphasize storytelling in order to emphasize his theme.  Because he does this, he fails at both.