Legendary director Steven Spielberg has long held an interest for extra terrestrial life. His 1979 film Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind was at once about the mysteries of the universe as it was about what obsession and an inability to communicate can do to a relationship. His 1985 picture E.T. the Extra Terrestrial centered on the kindness of children, and how a friendship can form from the most unlikely of places. He did a remake of the classic War of the Worlds that was about a desperate man trying to keep his family together under extreme pressure. He even gambled and introduced aliens into his serial adventure franchise in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to a mixed response. Through his career his fascination with life beyond our planet has been a regular well to return to, so it made sense that he would do it again for his 2026 feature Disclosure Day, about the world’s response to the news that aliens exist and are among us here on Earth.

It sounds like a clean hit, an earnest adventure film about a government agent defecting and running to get the word out the entire planet. But he took a much bigger swing than a straight forward adventure film. In it Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) is exactly that agent. The film opens on him in media rez as he’s trying to broker a deal to get his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) released from the custody of the agency bent on keeping the alien secret buried. He speaks with the head of the agency’s operations Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) and is able to slip out of their clutches with Jane and go on the run.

Meanwhile a meteorologist in Kansas City Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) is visited by a strange looking cardinal and suddenly develops the ability to speak Russian. Her powers go beyond that as she heads into work and seems to be able to tell people exactly what they need to hear in whatever moment they are in. Margaret’s radical empath abilities are the centerpiece of the film, while most of the chase scenes are put on O’Connor’s shoulders, he’s a co lead in name only. Emily Blunt is operating as audience surrogate, and as the star of the film.

The pair spend a bulk of the movie apart, but it’s shown that they each have their own power. Margaret is gifted with extreme empathy, to the extent that she shuts down for a moment due to fear of losing herself. Emily Blunt’s performance throughout is a highlight for the film. Kellner is able to look at the universe and make the math work, any sequence, graph, even language is immediately cracked for him. It harkens back to Spielberg’s parents, a subject that sits at the center of many of his films. His father was a computer programmer, his mother was a musician. Growing up in a world surrounded by those two skillsets gave him the ability to craft the worlds that he has. There was a moment in an Inside the Actor’s Studio episode host James Lipton mentions Spielberg’s parents jobs and points out that in Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind the way in which humans communicate with the aliens is by playing a song through a computer. Everything for Spielberg comes back to his love of art and science that his parent’s gave him.

The film is of course chock full of the usual Spielberg magic, his abilities have only gotten more self assured as he’s aged. The camera work in particular is enough to gob smack anyone, with Cinematographer Janusz Kominski getting a handful of classic Spielberg oners (scenes taking place in one shot) into the film. The two oners that really stand out are when Margaret is getting ready to go on the air right before she speaks in a strange guttural clicking noise the the citizens of Kansas City. And the other is a more action oriented shot, with Danny Kellner running along a fence and as he round the corner the camera goes through the fence and turns around to keep him in frame. Shots that only a pair like Spielberg and Kominski would even try to do.

While the goal of the leads is to get the alien word out, the real magic of the movie is the response of the world in the film. After a decade of division in this country it’s hard to imagine a world where everything stopped for a second. Where the entire world looked on and gasped at a piece of news. And it’s probable that even in the world of the film in the aftermath there are glib jokes and cynical memes and an attempt to discredit. A reignition of the snapping and denial that we’ve become numb to. That Scanlon and his goons will resume their quest to rip the world apart. But to see that moment when people everywhere looked at something and saw the same thing? That’s a kind of fantasy I can get behind. That’s the kind of empathy and intelligence the world needs right now.

5/5