Disclosure Day review: Spielberg returns to aliens and delivers an unmissable sci-fi thriller

Silence, Spielberg rolls, and the result (again) catches us off guard. Because Disclosure Day (in theaters from June 10, distributed by Universal Pictures Italia, ed.), his 36th film, marks a fascinating return to the world of science fiction, which he already explored in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), with that cameo-role-tribute to Truffaut, and in E.T., the extraterrestrial endowed with a humanity better than our own.

Those were cornerstones in "Spielbergian" cinematography, capable of venturing into A.I., into other universes (Ready Player One and Minority Report), finding other aliens, more invasive and less accommodating, as in War of the Worlds. Now the stakes are raised, everything becomes more tangible, cards are on the table, one must, and it says so, listen to the truth.

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The cast of Disclosure Day: Josh O'Connor and Emily Blunt drive an alien thriller full of nuances

The first, Daniel Kellner, played by Josh O'Connor (first collaboration), is an (ex) hacker, released from prison for cybercrimes. He is on the run from those who recruited him precisely for his "merits", a non-governmental company, Wardex, led by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), a shrewd and upright character, capable of connecting through certain instruments, able to uncover details, conveying actions, predicting them in advance, manipulating.

He is tasked with protecting many secrets (and videos) from 79 years of American history, the same ones that not even US presidents know, because, he says, "they last eight years, and then they go back to being civilians." Kellner has an ethical jolt, decides that what he has seen cannot be ignored, it must instead be shared with the world, so he steals the entire archive, files, videos, recordings, incredible images, concerning alien encounters and discoveries, starting from Roswell, irrefutable proof of other presences besides us, considered threats to be shot down, tortured, analyzed, covered up.

So he escapes, always in contact with the leader, and former Wardex employee, Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), who has since left the company, along with others, to "save" the information, protecting it at all costs in a kind of parallel rebellion and activism. On the other side, in Kansas City, works a meteorologist, Margaret Fairchild, local TV personality, played by a superb Emily Blunt.

A normal life, disrupted until a little bird, a Red Cardinal, enters her house, staring at her. She starts speaking Russian, without realizing it, and while she is rushing in her car for the next live broadcast, something clicks in her, she "immerses herself" in the lives of others, it happens to a policeman who stops her for speeding. Once in the studio, in front of the camera, she freezes and faints. The video is now viral: it is confirmation that she (and Kellner himself) are "passengers," called to be pulled by an inexplicable force and to carry out (together) a mission.

Where does it come from? As children, they experienced an alien abduction, for some, repressed. Now it's all clear: they fight for the same cause: to spread the truth, on what will be the day of revelation and disclosure, and everyone, absolutely everyone, will have to see what (and who) has been hidden from them.

The film also talks about this, about our fear of the unknown, capable of questioning even what we believe in, our very faith, those who govern us, and perhaps have been lying for too long. It's time to show the true side of information, across unified networks and platforms. What emerges is a sci-fi thriller to watch carefully, it's not entertainment, it's Cinema in its essence, with Spielberg still eager to amaze the audience by silently traversing it, with the sole exception of John Williams' soundtrack, gradually leading us.