- DISCLOSURE DAY
- Starring: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor and Colin Firth
- Directed by: Steven Spielberg
- Rated: PG 13
- Running time: 2 hrs 25 mins
- Universal
Our score: 5 out of 5
We are not alone.
Those four words were the tag line of one of the best films of the 1970s, Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” In “CE3K,” Spielberg made us wonder if there was, indeed, life “out there.” With “Disclosure Day” he shows us there is.
Margaret (Blunt) is the popular weather person at a local Kansas City television station. She is always looking for bigger and better things and when we meet her she is discussing a possible change with her boyfriend, Jackson (Wyatt Russell). Running late for work, she is pulled over but, without explanation, begins speaking with the officer regarding his private life…things she certainly shouldn’t know. Later, during her broadcast, she begins acting strange and emitting sounds that puzzle her superiors. Is something wrong with Margaret? Maybe…
A film that makes you question everything you’ve ever thought or believed about extra terrestrial life existing in this and other universes. Like Richard Dreyfuss and Melinda Dillon in “CE3K,” Margaret teams up with Daniel Kellner (O’Connor), a former government employee currently on the run from the Feds as he is about to release everything the government has accumulated on other world visitors. He also possess a special “device” that, in the wrong hands, can wreak havoc. They are pursued by Noah, played by an almost unrecognizable Collin Firth. Noah also has a “device,” despite the danger, feeling his actions are necessary to protect his department. As the three play an ongoing game of hide and seek, the excitement and tension grow.
As the director of the greatest film ever made, “Jaws,” Steven Spielberg is no stranger to presenting familiar things in amazingly new ways. You can’t throw a rock without hitting an “are there aliens out there movie” but “Disclosure Day” makes them all pale in comparison.
The action is accompanied by an incredible musical score by the maestro, John Williams, who came out of retirement at Spielberg’s behest to write the score for this film. Reminiscent at times of his Oscar-nominated score for “CE3K” – which lost to the score for “Star Wars,” also written by Williams – the music is as much an important character in the film as the actors. My prediction here is that for his work here he will receive his amazing 55th Academy Award nomination and his 6th Oscar.
On a scale of zero to five, “Disclosure Day” receives ★★★★★