- The film opens with contrasting shades of red and yellow. The camera pans over the wrestling match. The contender’s red costume, his cherry red hair, and the yellow logo in the ring all add pop like accents of interior décor. Scan the fans and see more of the same. The scene cuts to the weather girl, another flare of a scarlet dress, look for the yellow contrasts in the studio. Now cut to Margaret at home in her apartment, Van Gogh’s sunflowers, buttery wallpaper, bright red dress, and burnished tan lamp. And Hello! Here’s the animal messenger totem. What could be more perfect than a red feathered, yellow beaked cardinal? Outside, we have an ocher brick building and yep, red car. Okay, okay already, your turn, search, and you will find, over and over and over again…
- Daniel is crossing a field when suddenly, magically, the hay collapses around him in intricate crop circles. The plot point is clear; the protagonist’s conflict with the amazing power of the aliens has been delineated. The quest unfolds. As with the wicked and good witches in WOO, we have visited similar fields in Private Ryan, Always, Jurassic Park, Color Purple, and Twister.
- When Daniel and Jane make it to the safe house, we can already intuit it’s not safe because Jane sits at the table before a brightly lit window casting her into silhouette—danger is afoot. Sure enough, Noah Scanlon manifests across from her to control her mind against her will. As she and Daniel make their getaway, we are reminded of Sugarland Express and the promenade of cars trailing, government oppression style.
- After they drive the decoy car off the cliff, there is a brief shot reminiscent of Close Encounters (looking down at the arena in Devil’s Tower) and Wizard of Oz (looking down at witch’s soldiers) with our heroes crouching behind the rocks and watching the ‘enemy’.
- In Disclosure Day, there is such a long, loving shot of an old rocking chair that my antennae shoot up. The Color Purple comes to mind. I make a note. But when I get home, I can’t for the life of me remember which character was sitting in that fruit-stenciled chair. I google it. AI not only zeroes in that the seated person was Margaret being gently regressed into her childhood trauma memory by Hugo, but at my prodding, rewards me with a detailed bridge between Spielberg films, Wizard of Oz and the rocking chair’s significance as a transitionary device between the real world and fantasy, as a calming tool for an emotionally frozen character and the harsh world rocking around her. Yes, I am both humbled and impressed by AI. I did recall the old lady knitting in the rocking chair flying through Dorothy’s inside view of the tornado (not to mention the similar chair in Color Purple) however I was just going to point out the rocking chair as a symbol of the comforts of ‘home’. Kind of cool that AI is into the WOO theory.
- The protagonists’ wild escapes at first have no set destination, merely a mysterious, confident trickster-guide telling them to keep persevering north, Glinda style. When at last the final sanctuary presents itself, it is—of course, Margaret’s childhood home. No accident it’s located in Kansas (City).
- In promos for this film, Spielberg himself acknowledges redoing the scene from Duel where the car gets pushed into a train, so I won’t beleaguer it here, except for saying the trains also reminded me of Indy.
- When Margaret first enters her replica of home, pay attention to the wind blowing softly through the curtained window. Watch out, weird stuff is about to happen! BFG, Twister, etc.
- Ten-year-old Margaret, naïve to danger, sits up in bed and breaks out into sweet, pure song, the end of innocence for the remainder of her existence. West Side Story, Hook, Empire of the Sun, An American Tail, and WOO showcase similar tunes.
- Soon afterward, Margaret walks into the light. Oh man, don’t go there, it’s really hard to get back again! Close Encounters, Poltergeist, WOO, etc.
- A different kind of promenade is highlighted at the climax with the firetrucks. These are the good guys engaging in solidarity; a Spielberg favorite, you are never alone, your compadres will show up for you.
- Young Margaret reaches out for young Daniel’s hand in the sterile, scary abduction chamber, very ET reminiscent.
- Another typical WOO staple comes at the end when the news broadcast of alien presence, the actual disclosure, holds the entire world’s population transfixed, in utter silence (before the storm). Quiet before chaos like when the tornado drops Dorothy in Munchkinland is featured in ET, Private Ryan, Lincoln, War of the Worlds, Minority Report, etc.
- I liked this film, but it didn’t rev me up to the usual thrill I get with a Spielberg project. There were plenty of exciting scenes, but the story never accumulates enough tension; it lacks that building concern for your champions’ well-being. Maybe there was too much magical power in the protagonists’ hands already? Yes, Dorothy had the shoes, but she never knew how to use them. There was no doubt who had the upper hand in this adventure. Too many beatific, wise smiles? Too many helpers? And honestly, what was up with the hoaky, computer-generated animals? No trainers in Hollywood anymore? I know Steven likes to play around with spooky anthropomorphic traits like the apple trees in OZ but to anthropomorphize the animals? It was creepy, I’ll give you that. But it kind of fell flat…like the whole movie. Still and all, Disclosure Day was better than Hook, so not a total bust.
Disclosure Day • directed 2026
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