Disclosure Day

Is this film Steven Spielberg's swansong? For 2 hours and 25 minutes this film encapsulates so many vignettes from Spielberg's past sci-fi repertoire which for me detracted from the narrative. The film is too long, the plot too simple but the acting is first class.

The US government has been suppressing news of alien encounters for decades ever since the Roswell incident. With the world in turmoil and seemingly on the brink of World War III, Dr Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor) who works for Wardex, the company protecting the archive of alien encounters, decides that the world needs to know about this. He steals files that will prove alien existence with the intention of disclosing the facts to the global population. The CEO of Wardex, Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) mobilises his paramilitary forces to stop Keller and recover the stolen data. Who will succeed? Well, given the title of the film, there is little doubt.

As with so many Spielberg films, the story pivots on childhood experiences, in this case of Keller and TV weather presenter Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt). How the narrative resolves itself is creative and the  drama and suspense of the chase hooks the viewer, but for my money, it was too drawn out. There are some elements of the film that are almost slapstick in their awkwardness, which I felt were unnecessary.

Josh O'Connor's character is a brilliant mathematician but is pretty useless at running from danger. Emily Blunt's performance is worthy of award recognition while it is refreshing to see Colin Firth play a baddie with no romantic interest in the film. Or was he a baddie, or simply acting in the public interest? This conundrum runs throughout the film and clearly Scanlon becomes increasingly conflicted and in the end seems to simply give up. Can global society deal with this kind of disclosure? Do we really want to know that there has been contact?

The film left me feeling disappointed and now, three days on, that disappointment hasn't gone away. It's a film with an interesting concept and with great acting, but does that make it a great movie? For me, sadly, it does not. I've not spoiled how the plot unfolds - there is still plenty of meat on the bone. Go and see it for yourself and see what you make of it. I'm giving it 6/10.