Disclosure Day

A troubled TV weatherwoman is floored to discover that she knows things she should not—could not— know, things like languages and exotic numerology, and has no idea where this is all coming from. She soon becomes aware that she is not alone.

There’s a lot to unpack for this small space, so I’ll just let you enjoy watching the mystery unfold. Emily Blunt puts in a personal best in the lead role, with brilliant support from a talented cast that includes Josh O’Connor as a fellow “seer,” Colin Firth as the villainous head of the government organization responsible for keeping all things alien under wraps, and a superb Coleman Domingo as a dissident scientist.

Steven Spielberg is no stranger to the alien visitation genre. This is the visionary who gave us Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982), and War of the Worlds (2005). But this one, while of course being a genuinely thrilling blockbuster, is also a soul-searching experience that will have you examining not the visitors, but how we humans can try to understand and be more empathetic toward each other.

That this is a morally and thematically intricate film doesn’t keep it from being wildly entertaining. It is at once small and massive. A bonus is that the CGI, ubiquitous these days, is kept to a minimum.

I was at first a tad disappointed by the stereotypical way in which this directorial elder statesman chose to depict the aliens (tall and skinny, buggy eyes, etc.) but I loved what he did with it. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in aliens or not; that’s not what it’s about. The denouement, a plea, actually, is fragile and deeply moving. (145 min)