The last line, or more accurately, word, in Disclosure Day is “Listen.”  Such sentiments are well taken by a practicing Catholic, and the same can be said for many other parts of the movie.  If you have seen the trailers for director Steven Spielberg’s latest creation, you might be confused by such an opening.  Sure, there are nuns featured in the preview, but the gist of the title and the rest of the footage points to a story about aliens.  If you have this impression, then I am here to tell you that you are not wrong, and yet I stand by its Catholic content.  In talking about intelligent life other than ourselves in the universe, I typically remind people that the Church does not deny that this is possible.  The problem is proof, and until their existence is shown to be incontrovertible, I find thinking about whether they are real to be a useless exercise.  Perhaps my thoughts will change if we have something that happens like in the movie, but until then, why bother?  This is kind of how the Church’s stance is represented here, but there is so much more to discuss.

If a film is a conversation between itself and its audience, then Disclosure Day starts in the middle of it.  Cybersecurity specialist Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) has come to a professional wrestling event to exchange sensitive information he has stolen for the life of his girlfriend, Jane Blankenship (Eve Hewson).  He is taken out of the arena where he is confronted by his former boss, Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), head of the Wardex Corporation.  To save you the time that it took me to sit through the film in order to understand what is going on, I will give away the plot now.  Wardex has been working with alien life forms since the legendary Roswell, New Mexico, crash landings in the 1940s.  “Working with” is being kind.  They have made a great deal of money for themselves by reverse engineering the visitors’ technology and benefitting the United States government, mainly the military.  To get what they have desired, aside from keeping it secret from the public, they have tortured many of the surviving beings that have fallen into custody.  Once Daniel has made the exchange for Jane, he flashes one the devices that he has taken with the information he downloaded.  It is clear that Noah and his men fear the doodad, for they let him get away.  As they are fleeing, Daniel gets a call from Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), a former associate of Daniel’s who has formed a sort of resistance against Wardex.  All this is being revealed to Jane in drips and drabs as they escape to the one place that she feels nobody will find them, the Monastery at St. Clare of the Dawn, where she had been in the process of becoming a nun.  Meanwhile, in Kansas City the weather reporter for local news, Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), is preparing for her next time on air.  As she is bustling around the apartment she shares with her boyfriend, Jackson (Wyatt Russell), a cardinal makes its way into their kitchen and stares at her.  The moment lasts for several seconds before he shoos it out the window, but the experience awakens something inside her.  When next she talks, it is in Russian, which he takes as some kind of response to rising global tensions with North Korean and the former Soviet republic, a situation that is threatening World War III.  However, she thinks she had been speaking normally and brushes off his worried look as she hustles out the door.  That hustling leads to speeding and being pulled over, but she is able to read the thoughts of the police officer.  So stunned is he by her insights that she is let go and she makes it just in time to get in front of the cameras.  Instead of being able to give her report, her voice falters, turning into breaths and clicks before she faints.  Taken to the hospital, the doctors find nothing wrong with her, but she senses that the group of people outside her room are Wardex thugs wanting to take her into custody, so she and Jackson run.  That is also what Daniel and Jane do when Hugo provides them a safe house.  As Daniel is outside getting further instructions, Jane is psychically attacked by Noah, who uses one of the devices that Daniel is carrying.  Noah gets Jane to reveal her location, which means more escaping.  Eventually, he is caught at a motel, but not before giving that same bit of technology to Jane and telling her to go off on her own.  At the same time, Margaret is being psychically drawn towards Daniel, but has to leave behind Jackson, who has trouble coping with what is happening to her.  She finds Daniel where he is being held by Noah and Wardex, and is able to talk her way inside by using her newfound powers and get him out.  Together, they find Hugo back in Kansas City where he has set up her childhood home.  Hugo believes that by recreating this space, and using that same device that Daniel took, the events that gave her these abilities can be recreated and unlock their full potential.  It is at this point that we see how Daniel and Margaret had been taken as children by aliens and made into vessels to carry their message to Earth, with Daniel being able to understand and Margaret being able to communicate.  Wardex, and specifically Noah, have been fighting against this information being given to the public because he thinks humanity will be unable to handle it.  Indeed, they track Daniel and Margaret to her television studios where they are about to set up to disclose everything to the entire world.  Noah is unable to stop it, and the revelation seems to halt mounting global hostilities.  Finally, one of the remaining extraterrestrials is wheeled out, who gives the word mentioned at the start of this review, which is then relayed to Margaret to say to the whole world.

Like Margaret, I have much to say about Disclosure Day.  Indeed, I had to scale back some of the synopsis because there is a lot of detail that could have forced me make that section a lot longer than it currently stands.  The film had the same problem since its beginning seems like the middle of any other film.  We are introduced to Daniel, Jane, and Noah within the first few minutes, and we do not see Jane’s kidnapping or the theft of Wardex data.  In most other stories, such an exchange is a third act event.  Hence it took me a while to catch up with what is happening.  You can blame some of this on my frail humanity.  Faith teaches us to be patient with God’s will because that is sufficient for any point in your life.  I am as guilty as anyone else of wanting to know where we are going.  However, if we can surrender such desires to God, we can do more of what the movie tells us to do at the end.  On this topic, the film has some good words to keep in mind.  When Jane is expressing some of her problems to her former abbess, Sister Maura (Elizabeth Marvel), the nun reminds the one time religious to not be afraid of the unknown.  As a movie watcher, the unknown annoys me, and too often I blame the director for not explaining things sufficiently.  Sometimes I remain convinced this is an appropriate criticism, but here it is all about the title.  Another way of looking at it is with another phrase: all in good time.  It is a message that is imbued into Scripture, and one that guides how this story unfolds.  It may not be for everyone, but it works here.

What also works for me in Disclosure Day is the stance Sister Maura offers regarding the possibility of alien life.  She is replying to Jane’s fears of what revealing the existence of aliens will do to people around the world.  In expressing her doubts, she does make some solid points about how essential is God, adding that belief has kept civilization together.  This is true to a degree, but the way it has been practiced at times has also threatened to tear it apart.  A large part of Faith is accepting the unknown, even if that is exactly the opposite of what Daniel, Hugo, and Jane are trying to accomplish.  Thus, the issue becomes what will knowledge do to mankind.  Noah attempts to twist this logic back on Jane, asking her to trust him instead of following Daniel’s desire to reveal the truth.  Sister Maura offers an alternative view, and why that is more closely held by the Church.  Instead of what some might assume, the Church has typically not been against the enlightenment of its parishioners.  To be sure, there have been times when this has been the case.  For instance, Galileo’s heliocentric theories were not initially well received in Rome.  However, as science advance and this has become science fact, the Church has stood aside and been more a facilitator of scientific advancement.  Thus, when Sister Maura says not to be afraid, the sentiment includes not worrying about the revelation of aliens.  Instead of rejecting it, she points the way to what Catholicism does more frequently: inclusion.  You can disapprove of my use of that word if you want, but it is the Christian way of living one’s life.

As such, may this Disclosure Day reveal to you not only that this is a pretty good, if sometimes confusing piece of cinema, but that the existence of alien life forms can be fit into even the most religious way of thinking.  That is as good a reason as any to see this one.