Disclosure Day
Steven Spielberg returns to familiar territory with his big-scale mystery-thriller that is more intriguing than enthralling.
The truth is out there: Delaney Anne Cuthbert
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
There’s a lot going on we don’t know about. But should we be privy to such information? Steven Spielberg’s thirty-fourth movie returns to familiar themes, dipping in and out of past glories to rustle up an elephantine mystery-thriller laden with Spielbergian cliché. So there’s a shadowy, multi-billion-dollar organisation presided over by a nasty piece of work with an English accent (Colin Firth), a lot of inexplicable occurrences that defy the natural order of things, fleets of armoured black SUVs that appear out of nowhere, children’s faces lit up with wonder, masterfully modulated camera moves and a sense of something extraterrestrial in the state of Kansas (and New Mexico). Were the film not so deadly po-faced, one might think the whole thing was a parody of all things DreamWorks.
There’s an awful lot to unpack and so Disclosure Day jumps straight into the narrative midstream. The movie opens in the middle of a wrestling match, attended by a nervous Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), who’s having trouble holding on to his backpack. Daniel is threatening to “dump everything online” and has therefore made himself the government’s Enemy Number One. Thanks to an unseemly amount of exposition we quickly gather that he is in the business of “keeping secrets for a living” and has already spent nineteen months in prison for cybercrimes. In possession of a crucial, enigmatic device, he is now on the run with his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) in tow. They can’t have been an item for long as he was unaware that she had been in training to take holy orders, although her nunnery is as good a place as any to hide out in. But when he reveals to her the contents of his almighty secret, she feels his knowledge threatens her very belief in god…
Meanwhile, in Kansas City, TV weather girl Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), who’s looking for a worthier position as a news anchor, is visited by a cardinal, which flies straight through the window of the apartment she shares with her boyfriend, Jackson (Wyatt Russell). Jackson shoos the bird away, but seconds later Margaret starts speaking in fluent Russian. She knows not how, nor do we, and as the film teases out its tentacles of plot it all becomes quite intriguing. Knowing Spielberg, there are some terrifically suspenseful action sequences and much we have to take on trust as the director touches on a wide-ranging tranche of topics ranging from quantum physics and Al, to religion and cosmic truths. If at times the film seems to stretch credulity, one shouldn’t forget that Spielberg is at home with science fiction and this is a laudable addition to that canon. And of course it is superlatively directed and should keep one glued to one’s seat, even at 145 minutes.
Cast: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Elizabeth Marvel, Hettienne Park, Tommy Martinez, Gabby Beans, Jeremy Shamos, Brandon Wilson, Delaney Anne Cuthbert.
Dir Steven Spielberg, Pro Kristie Macosko Krieger and Steven Spielberg, Screenplay David Koepp, from a story by Steven Spielberg, Ph Janusz Kamiński, Pro Des Adam Stockhausen, Ed Sarah Broshar, Music John Williams, Costumes Paul Tazewell, Sound Gary Rydstrom, Dialect coaches William Conacher and Elizabeth Himelstein.
Amblin Entertainment-Universal Pictures.
145 mins. USA. 2026. UK Rel: 10 June 2026. US Rel: 12 June 2026. Cert. 12A.
