Disclosure Day

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of the most important films in my life, if not the most. When I watched it as a little kid, two things happened:

I became completely obsessed with aliens and UFOs. I literally read every single book on the subject in my local library, then used their (for the mid-eighties) cutting-edge computer to order every other book available in the Buckinghamshire library system. At the age of eleven, I could’ve gone on Mastermind with the specialist subject ‘Alien sightings and abductions 1947 - 1987’.

The second thing occurred when, during the film, the camera panned down to reveal a boat sitting inexplicably in the middle of the Gobi Desert. I thought, “I want to do this”. I remember it clearly. I hadn’t got it all figured out then, but I knew I wanted to tell weird tales in some shape or form. I started writing short stories about spaceships landing in the market square of the town I lived in. And there was what would now be called fanfiction based on Aliens, which I really shouldn’t have been watching at that age. I don’t think my parents quite understood the BBFC’s rating system.

A couple of days ago, I watched Close Encounters with my 22-year-old eldest, interested in what the Gen Z opinion would be. When it finished, I asked him what he thought, and he replied, “Well, I can see how, in the seventies, that would completely blow your mind.” Which I think is praise.

After almost 50 years, it still excited, scared, and moved me. I don’t care what anyone says. The abduction of Barry is still terrifying, and the moment of first contact will always be heartwarming. Spielberg has said that if he’d made the film after he’d had children, Neary wouldn’t get on the spaceship at the end and leave his family. But I dunno. Those kids were really annoying.

Anyway, the reason for the revisit was to get in the zone for Disclosure Day, Spielberg’s return to aliens and UFOs. Sometimes referred to as a ‘spiritual sequel’ to Close Encounters, it once again mixes ordinary people thrust into an extraordinary situation with government agencies trying to control said situation.

Josh O’Connor is Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity boffin on the run after stealing evidence of the government cover-up of proof of extraterrestrial life from the shadowy Wardex corporation. Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) is a local TV meteorologist (why is that Hollywood’s go-to occupation if they want to show the character as ambitious?) who suddenly starts speaking in an alien language live on air.

For the next two hours and twenty-five minutes, they’re chased by the Wardex CEO, Noah Scanlon, played by Colin Firth. Firth is the only non-American actor in the cast using his own accent because he’s the bad guy and so is contractually required to be British. I don’t make the rules.

There are different periods in Spielberg’s career. One of those is his earlier, more idealistic film cycle (Close Encounters, E.T. etc.) and another is his darker post-9/11 work (War of the Worlds, Munich, and so on). Disclosure Day is a mostly successful welding of the two attitudes. In what could just be reduced to a chase movie, he and screenwriter David Koepp deal with some Big Themes. Questions of faith, our place in the universe, our responsibility to humanity. But the biggest of all is a big fat retort to those who reject empathy as weakness.

Emily Blunt is brilliant as someone trying to cope with a situation almost impossible to understand. I expect an Oscar nomination for the vein in her forehead. And I don’t know how John Williams is knocking it out of the park at 94 years old. And it’s got plenty of Spielbergian moments. Heart. Excitement. Flourishes with the camera that make you ask, “How the hell did he do that?”

So, yeah, a solid 4/5 film. It doesn’t reach the heights of Close Encounters, but I’m glad that one of my childhood heroes is still trying to get there.