Between the recent box-office successes of Obsession and Backrooms, I can’t remember the last time I felt this optimistic about the state of new voices in the movie business. Ironically, that’s why it pains me to tell you that Disclosure Day is a devastatingly mixed bag. I would have loved nothing more than for the great Steven Spielberg to give us something which could stand toe-to-toe with this summer’s biggest surprise hits, both directed by artists nearly 60 years his junior. As it is, Spielberg’s much-anticipated return to science fiction isn’t even in the same backroom as Backrooms.
There will be people who love Disclosure Day, and I don’t mean to discount that love. The film operates on a few big ideas which are certainly very interesting, but they wear themselves out amid a sea of unimportant exposition. In any case, we follow weather reporter Margaret (Emily Blunt) and hacker Daniel (Josh O’Connor) as Margaret begins to experience strange psychic connections with literally everyone she meets, including her boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell, who humorously steals the movie at certain points). Daniel doesn’t know Margaret, but the shadowy group he’s working with to get the truth out about the existence of alien life knows she’s important after her strange episode on the morning news goes viral. She seems to be suddenly speaking some unknown language, — even unknown to her — but when Daniel sees the clip, he hears it in English.
From here, the film builds on the suspense of the mysteries which Margaret and Daniel are trying to solve regarding their abilities, and which the villainous Noah (Colin Firth) is trying to suppress through his secretive company. For most of its first half, the film has all the momentum in the world. The issue is that there are implicit promises made to the audience when a story is told this way: these disparate pieces will connect; we will learn the full truth behind the characters’ newfound powers; the big ideas of the story will mesh with each other in a satisfying way. I’m sorry to say that none of this ends up happening. As it got deep into its second act and early into its third, I kept waiting for Disclosure Day to… well, disclose itself, and it mostly refused to do so. Again, there will be viewers who find it more fulfilling than I did, but I can’t imagine they’ll be in the majority.
At the very least, I can still say that Spielberg has never made a total disaster of a film, outside of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. However, he does leave so much to be desired here that I can understand how some could hate this movie just as much as someone could love it. I’m almost squarely in the middle of that spectrum. I think the sheer ambition and lack of cynicism the film displays is incredibly admirable. I also genuinely love the action sequences early on; Spielberg has never lost his touch when it comes to car chases. Also, it must be said that Emily Blunt carries the entire film. She does so much with so few specifics on the page that it genuinely blew me away how much I came to care about Margaret without really knowing that much about her. David Koepp’s script tells us a few key things about her, but either he or Spielberg or both wasted many opportunities to show us more about her. Thus, it’s on Blunt to do it all, and she does it all brilliantly.
Along with the two dynamo summer-2026 movies I mentioned previously, another one I thought about while watching Disclosure Day was Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters, also still in theaters. While I don’t think it’s quite as good as the two surprise horror hits, it comes from such a unique, distinctive voice and has so much of import to say about the state of the world that Disclosure looks like a pale imitation of itself by comparison. Both films have structural issues which I think hold them back, but Spielberg’s lacks even the bare minimum connective tissue which makes Boosters connect with audiences, despite being as wacky as it can be. In short, there is so much flavor on the multiplex menu right now that I hope moviegoers won’t waste their time and money on something so bland. | George Napper
