{"id":32697,"date":"2026-06-28T02:26:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T06:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=32697"},"modified":"2026-06-28T02:26:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T06:26:39","slug":"legendary-director-steven-spielbergs-disclosure-day-asks-the-big-question-do-you-believe-we-are-not-alone-in-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=32697","title":{"rendered":"Legendary Director Steven Spielberg\u2019s \u201cDisclosure Day\u201d Asks the Big Question \u2014 \u201cDo You Believe We Are Not Alone in The Universe?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Review by Brad Balfour, Arts Editor
 
Film: \u201cDisclosure Day\u201d
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: David Koepp
Cast: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo. Elizabeth Marvel, Wyatt Russell
 
Yes, I know it\u2019s a big event film. Yes, it\u2019s meant to offer the other side of the same coin that \u201cClose Encounters of the Third Kind\u201d reflected. While Steven Spielberg\u2019s films like \u201cE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial\u201d offered a more whimsical view of aliens on Earth, he has also explored the destructive implications of aliens landing on Earth through his remake of \u201cWar of The Worlds\u201d \u2014 H.G. Wells’ classic novel of alien invasion.
 
Whether \u201cDisclosure Day\u201d is master director Spielberg\u2019s final statement on the existence of extraterrestrials or not, he adamantly maintains throughout the film that confirmation of their existence will change the world forever.
 
It\u2019s really a pretty simple story. While global tensions are heating up, two very different people suddenly become connected as the alien presence in their heads starts to emerge. One is a reporter on a tv station; the other, a scientist and ex-con who is a math genius and major hacker.
 
Oscar\u00ae nominee Emily Blunt (\u201cOppenheimer\u201d) and Emmy and Golden Globe winner Josh O\u2019Connor (\u201cChallengers\u201d) play the whistleblowers who plan to blow wide open knowledge of their existence. The film kicks off when Margaret Fairchild (Blunt) \u2013\u2013 a Kansas City TV meteorologist \u2013\u2013 and Daniel Kellner (O’Connor) \u2013\u2013 a former journalist and young cybersecurity expert \u2013\u2013 begin to encounter each other because implanted knowledge of the aliens finally emerges within them both. As they become increasingly linked, they set off alarm bells.
 
For some reason, the aliens have embedded themselves into both their heads, waiting for the time when they need to emerge. Of course, that begs the question: \u201cWhy?\u201d Couldn\u2019t the aliens just land and announce themselves to the world without all the creeping revelations?
 
Nonetheless, Spielberg and writer Dave Koepp have chosen to tackle the notion of first contact by having the aliens connect with us in this surreptitious way. Instead of exposing themselves directly, they use these human vessels. Maybe that\u2019s because this approach offers a more dramatic way to engage the two stars, Blunt and O’Connor, to be a better face for the aliens. Or, maybe it\u2019s because a shadowy organization has been suppressing close encounters of the third kind once they began. This group, now headed by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), have chosen to torture and abuse the aliens for their secrets and technology. They have been intending to reverse engineer what they\u2019ve uncovered.
 
Wardex Corporation is a secret organization trying to keep secret alien visits on earth. But this covert company is threatened by a renegade group headed by Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo.) Its members are determined to reveal the visitors\u2019 existence in the hope that such a revelation will alter humanity\u2019s perception of itself. As in all of its promos, the movie asks the question: \u201cIf you found out that we weren\u2019t alone \u2014 if someone showed you, proved it to you \u2014 would that frighten you?\u201d Well, it certainly frightens certain characters in the film. But since a majority of people actually believe that we have been visited by aliens, I\u2019m not sure it would really be such a shock.
 
With a tag line like \u201cThis summer, the truth belongs to seven billion people,\u201d the film portends bigger things, bigger than war with Iran or Trump\u2019s birthday. I\u2019m not sure we\u2019re really worrying about them at all. But since Spielberg is begging the question, and he believes their appearance would be friendly, the consequences would be and should be enormous. How they would unite us remains to be seen.
 
Though much of the film is dominated by chase scenes and moments of near-destruction, it finally confronts its characters and the audience with the big question. And the film tries to explore such a revelation\u2019s possible implications. There\u2019s this nun, Sister Maura (Elizabeth Marvel) who had headed the convent where Kellner\u2019s girlfriend, Jane Blankenship (Eve Hewson), had once been as a nun. She believes that the visitors\u2019 appearance on Earth only proves God\u2019s great and mysterious ways. And the many renegades who have joined Wakefield also believe their mission to be globally essential if not spiritually uplifting.
 
But there\u2019s just so much that\u2019s appeared since Spielberg\u2019s groundbreaking exploration of extraterrestrials in \u201cClose Encounters\u201d that this film had to be made. That\u2019s not only because the great director believed he still needed another pass in the alien encounter realm, but also that he felt he needed to make something that would almost be apocalyptic \u2013\u2013 even transcendent in its ideas and expression. 
 
That he only partially succeeds may not be a flaw of Spielberg or the film. It\u2019s just that the notion is so huge that no amount of filmmaking can truly capture the consequences of actual alien visitation. But in this day and age, it may just give us hope for the future as the original space program once did.<\/p>\n

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