Culture
Now Playing ‘Disclosure Day’: How can we talk to aliens if we can’t even talk to each other?
By: Gordon Briggs
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Disclosure Day grabbed me from the beginning. Rather than slowly building up with a traditional introduction, this movie kicks off in the middle of the story and drops us into the action, where two fugitives are on the run from mysterious pursuers. I enjoy the sense of mystery the movie crafts with its opening act.
I want to distinguish between the film’s plot and its story. Disclosure Day can be enjoyed as a sci-fi conspiracy thriller, one that concerns a rogue group of whistleblowers attempting to expose decades of government cover-ups regarding extraterrestrial contact. While on the run, several of its characters engage in daring escapes, car chases, and other close calls as they are pursued by a secret organization.
What’s interesting to me is how, amid its many thrills, the film reveals its primary concern: exploring how people can empathize with one another. That theme of the power of empathy and the importance of communicating it is embodied in the character played effectively by Emily Blunt.
In what is probably her best performance to date, Emily Blunt plays a seemingly ordinary woman who possesses the power of emotional telepathy. Not only will Blunt’s power allow the character to get in and out of many tricky situations, but it also creates many of the film’s best moments. I enjoy how Blunt reacts to her own abilities. She seems both wowed and genuinely disturbed by her ability to relate to others’ needs. Example: There’s a remarkable scene in which she treats the alien possession as a real-world panic attack and must calm herself by touching the piano strings.
The film’s qualities don’t stop with Blunt. Rather than making extraterrestrials something to be feared or portraying the government as an institution to always be mistrusted. I enjoyed how the film grapples with the religious and cultural consequences of the information they wish to disclose. For instance, there’s a well-realized scene where two characters debate how the revelation of extraterrestrial life might affect religious beliefs worldwide.
That’s part of what I enjoyed about this movie. Amid the action and visual spectacle, the film wisely features characters who pause to debate the spiritual and ethical repercussions of their actions. In a world where our divisions seem to define us more than our commonalities, the greatest danger here isn’t from extraterrestrial life but our inability to communicate with one another.
The central thesis of Disclosure Day is that raw information , even proof of extraterrestrial life, cannot save humanity without empathy. Instead of resorting to violence, the protagonists attempt to defeat the authoritarian antagonists by empathizing with one another.
As effective as the film is overall, Disclosure Day is not without its flaws. Because Emily Blunt’s character is so powerful, it raises questions about why and how her powers are being used, and what their limits are. There was even one escape scene that stretched the bounds of believability, even for a sci-fi nerd like me. In fact, the climax of the movie, which I won’t spoil here, felt somewhat rushed and left me a little unsatisfied because so many questions went unanswered.
Minor qualms aside, I think I may need to watch this movie for a second time to fully appreciate its ideas. Still, I look forward to seeing more of Disclosure Day and believe it provokes interesting questions about how we could possibly speak to another species when speaking to one another seems so daunting.
★ ★ ★1/2 .