"No."
"Are they people?"
"No."
"Are they human?"
If you want evidence that Steven Spielberg is still a storyteller supreme, Disclosure Day kept a cinema audience still and spellbound for over two hours. From an excellently-constructed and tight David Koepp script, in some respects this is Close Encounters filtered through the lens of an old-school conspiracy thriller, as parallel narratives steadily bring together the lives of Margaret (Emily Blunt), a local weather presenter, and Daniel (Josh O'Connor), a renegade Government cyber-security specialist, both with particular 'gifts' that stem from mysterious childhood events and who are destined to change the world by revealing long-hidden secrets. It has great set pieces, some typically smart Spielberg visual flourishes, and a superb and surprisingly tight core cast that includes an impressively excellent performance from Emily Blunt (particularly in the final act), more winning character work from Josh O'Connor, and Colin Firth exuding barely-restrained menace as the pair's nemesis. Typical Spielberg themes of religion, fairy tales/Disney, all inform this (for the most part\) restrained yet powerful film. childhood trauma, covert Government goings-on and - yes - extra-terrestrials in this (for the most part) quite restrained yet powerful film. With heightened modern geopolitics pushed to the background, Spielberg's eternal optimism for humanity may play a little quaintly in the current climate, but this fusion of classic and modern Spielberg is both impressive in its storytelling and absorbing to watch.
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