Disclosure Day may not be Steven Spielberg’s greatest film: Who would ever dare to choose? But it’s the greatest film he could have possibly made in this moment, at a time when humans worldwide are feeling bewildered and blindsided by a new order in which compassion, creativity, and respect for the natural world have become traits to be crushed, not nurtured. Disclosure Day is majestic, unnerving, and more than little wacky, though its pure unhinged quality is probably its secret sauce. Spielberg is one of our most imaginative directors, but he’s also one of our most sensible. With Disclosure Day—which proposes that aliens, wherever they are, have much to teach us—he’s gone off his rocker a little bit, and magnificently so. It’s one thing to realize we’re not alone in the universe; it’s another to suddenly feel that we’re not alone in this world, and that’s the reassurance Spielberg gives us with Disclosure Day, in a not-so-secret code.
Written by David Koepp, Spielberg’s most frequent collaborator, from a story conceived by Spielberg, Disclosure Day zips two stories together like strands of DNA. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) is a government cybersecurity expert gone rogue. For decades the organization he used to work for, an evil racket known as Wardex, has been hiding important information regarding the existence of extraterrestrial life. Daniel has decided it’s time for the citizens of Earth to know the truth, but his possession of top-secret data has made him a target of Wardex's top creep Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth). One of Daniel's few allies is Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), another Wardex renegade, one who practically beams with benevolence—this is a face you can trust. Daniel also has a new girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson), and the secret knowledge he's hoarding has endangered her as well. But she too is withholding a truth: She's a former nun who hasn’t yet apprised her recently acquired beau of her past.
If your head isn’
