Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for Disclosure Day. It may also contain the writer’s opinions. Reader discretion is advised.
Disclosure Day is a sci-fi movie, but it does have moments where religion and faith intersect. There are scenes in the film when you feel as though the questions are directed at you. It is as if Steven Spielberg or David Koepp are asking whether humanity can face the truth when it learns of the existence of other intelligent beings. This would render government secrets meaningless and bring everything into the open. Information of that magnitude could either divide or unite humanity.
The film has a lot to say about these ideas. However, one thing it leaves unresolved is the question of faith. This open-ended issue has stirred quite some discussions online.
Disclosure Day can be a frustrating movie in this regard. It is not anti-religion, nor does it argue that aliens will replace God. In fact, the film treats religious characters with empathy. The problem is that Disclosure Day keeps bringing up these conversations about belief and spirituality, but talks about them only from a distance.
Disclosure Day and its spiritual questions
This issue of keeping faith at a distance while still teasing it becomes quite noticeable as the film progresses. Disclosure Day devotes a considerable amount of attention to government conspiracies and extraterrestrial communication. But when it comes to the compelling ideas on faith, the film prefers to leave them underexplored.
It could be because the movie wanted to be perceived primarily as a sci-fi film and not confuse audiences by mixing other genres. Bringing religion and faith into the discussion is risky, as it invites controversy and is a rather large topic to explore within the confines of a feature-length movie.
Aliens and faith have been connected in the real world as well through ideas about dimensional abilities, otherworldly powers, and other such concepts.
Among the film’s major characters, Jane is the one who is forced to deal with the spiritual implications of disclosure. Unlike Daniel, whose focus is fixed on revealing the truth, or Margaret, whose extraordinary abilities lead her to empathy and understanding, Jane sees another consequence. If aliens are real, how does that affect what people believe about themselves, the universe, and God?
However, Disclosure Day does not give her much time to wrestle with those ideas. Jane’s background as a former nun-in-training and her conversations with Sister Maura reveal her struggle with faith. When Noah Scanlon appears before her and tries to control her mind through the device, she presses the cross in her hand so tightly that she bleeds. She leans on her faith in that moment of fear. This suggests that she is undergoing a spiritual crisis. Yet much of that happens at the edges of the film rather than at its center.
That said, the movie is still sci-fi. But it clearly wants religion to matter. The imagery is everywhere. Crosses, nuns, prayer, religious language, and discussions about belief are present throughout the film. Faith is placed alongside aliens as one of the film’s major themes. Yet when the time comes to explore how those ideas interact, the narrative switches back to the conspiracy plot.
Disclosure Day is not lacking ideas. In fact, it’s the opposite. It may have too many. Government cover-ups, empathy, communication, free will, memory, disclosure, and extraterrestrial contact, the film is juggling a number of themes all at once.
So, Disclosure Day has a religion problem because it introduces faith into the story, only to leave it hanging when the time comes to explore it.
Stay tuned to Soap Central for more updates and detailed coverage.
Edited by Parishmita Baruah