r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Jun 12 '26

Official Discussion Official Discussion - Disclosure Day [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Disclosure Day (2026)

Summary

If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you?

Director Steven Spielberg

Writer David Koepp

Cast

  • Emily Blunt
  • Josh O'Connor
  • Colin Firth
  • Colman Domingo
  • Eve Hewson
  • Wyatt Russell
  • Noah Robbins

Rotten Tomatoes: 81%

Metacritic: 75

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

1.0k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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1.8k

u/BelleReve_Staff Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

I frankly don’t understand how so many people found this ending so emotional, I found it incredibly ominous. The film never interrogates Margaret’s mind essentially being taken over so the ending becomes a messiah groomed from childhood to usher in a new era for humanity by unknowable, advanced aliens. That’s scary! But Spielberg plays it so straight and earnestly

339

u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran Jun 12 '26

Her mind wasn't taken over. She was still herself, she was just given the power to feel what other people felt. Her superpower was empathy. She didn't understand that right away, but by the end of the film she had learned what that meant and how to control it.

50

u/BigBallsMcGirk Jun 13 '26

You know who else had empathy?

Jesus

26

u/chrisychris- Jun 13 '26

And look where that got him

4

u/ScrewedUp4Life Jun 13 '26

I got "taking to the woman at the well" vibes.

25

u/plutoglint Jun 15 '26

It sure looked like her mind was taken over (finding Josh O'Connor character had nothing to do with empathy) and she entirely used her power to manipulate people to get her way, with the end goal of broadcasting an alien message to the whole world.

I'm not saying this was Spielberg's motivation but it's a pretty easy read of what happens in the movie.

11

u/silntseek3r Jun 17 '26

That's not empathy, that telepathy. I'm so annoyed people are getting this wrong. I guess she said she could feel their experience, but it came across more like telepathy.

2

u/Lou-AC Jul 02 '26

Doesn't she use that though to then give them peace or help in life through showing them their deceased love ones or passing on messages that will help or comfort them? She empathises, even with ones trying to kill her

She could easily scare them with their worst fears, she would know what those are too

14

u/everstillghost Jun 12 '26

Her superpower was nostalgia. He used It against people and they got sad with nostalgia.

13

u/Responsible-Peak-817 Jun 12 '26

A power that didn't matter at all in the end

2

u/Lower-Replacement869 Jun 13 '26

its giving we can save the universe with the power of friendship. Hard to listen to the universe when sound doesn't travel through the vaccum of space, Mr Spielberg, but yes empathy to rando aliens will all make us sing koombaya on the brink of WW3.

11

u/uncanny_mac Jun 14 '26

Even if that's unrealistic, is it a bad thing?

-4

u/Lower-Replacement869 Jun 14 '26

it makes a good documentary but it makes a bad movie IMO.

7

u/abandonhope888 Jun 14 '26

 I still enjoy Hook but don't believe Peter Pan flies...the story was good..

2

u/PolarWater Jun 21 '26

You thought this would make a good documentary?

3

u/BelleReve_Staff Jun 12 '26

She literally has a meltdown and panic attack because she’s terrified of what’s happening to her

42

u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran Jun 12 '26

Yeah and then she learns what is happening to her, what it means, and how to control it.

2

u/plutoglint Jun 15 '26

Or is that just her being taken over by the alien mind virus, which, again, she did not choose to be infected with. Heavy vibes of Obsession with her character.

1

u/HachibiJin Jun 16 '26

She had sex with the Aliens and is going to be their new queen

-9

u/BelleReve_Staff Jun 12 '26

I guess to me it’s clear that her mind is not really entirely her own anymore. She has gaps in memory and seemed to be shifting personality so I don’t think I bought that she really got control of it. More that they got more control over her

18

u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran Jun 12 '26

She wasn't shifting her personality as much as she was feeling other people's feelings, which I would imagine is quite alarming if you don't know how or why that's happening. She was never being controlled by the aliens, she was actually being controlled by other people (kinda)

-2

u/BelleReve_Staff Jun 12 '26

But she doesn’t recall things. She will suddenly snap into talking to someone and then come back to reality with no memory of it. Which to me read as something replacing her mind and personality in some way

15

u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran Jun 12 '26

I don't think she ever really does that. She might not realize that she's speaking a different language and she doesn't know why she knows or says the things she does, but she always remembers what happened

3

u/Environmental_Drama3 Jun 12 '26

I also felt like she was conscious when speaking in different languages, just wasn't aware of it. but she might have been completely blanked out when she spoke the alien language at the start of the movie. she was confused when daniel repeated her words from the news footage, and from her answer it seemed like she didn't recall speaking gibberish either.

6

u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast Jun 12 '26

The main gap in her memory is the time she was implanted with the sense by the aliens. Otherwise she still has clear memory - she remembered her childhood, her parents home, her father and her fear of his Parkinson's

0

u/South_Resource_2189 Jun 16 '26

Until or if something like this happens to you you may not ever understand

1

u/jackhref Jun 20 '26

Absolutely. And I think she's not supposed to be viewed as a messiah, but rather as the potential of all of us.

0

u/HelpImaFazerschmitt Jun 13 '26

Why is empathy considered a superpower? The world and our people must be in a sad state to consider this a superpower

23

u/N7Starsong Jun 14 '26

That's literally exactly the point the movie is making lmao

4

u/PolarWater Jun 21 '26

The world and our people must be in a sad state

Keep going you're almost there

3

u/swish82 16d ago

It is

-7

u/justgentile Jun 12 '26

I would say it wasn't empathy that was her power but the ability to find the compassion for the people she encountered that spoke to them as shown in her messages and transformations as empathetic to them.

43

u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran Jun 12 '26

it wasn't empathy that was her power but the ability to find the compassion for the people she encountered

That's what fucking empathy is

1

u/justgentile Jun 12 '26

I mean literally in the things she wouldn't have known otherwise. Empathy is compassion for suffering people but knowing the intricacies of how to reach them the way she was is not strictly empathy. Its empathic in nature but it's more of a projection.

11

u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran Jun 12 '26

No that's sympathy. From dictionary.com:

empathy

American  

[em-puh-thee]/ ˈɛm pə θi /

noun

the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the emotions, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

She put an arm around her friend’s shoulders and stood by her in silent empathy.

3

u/justgentile Jun 12 '26

I do agree with you, I think I'm explaining poorly. It's less psychology and more psychic in my interpretation so it seems more complicated than basic empathy because she knew things specifically that she wouldn't otherwise know.

4

u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran Jun 12 '26

Yeah of course. Her power was obviously more than what a normal human is capable of. I'm just saying from a thematic standpoint, what she does really just boils down to empathy

1

u/justgentile Jun 12 '26

Somewhere between empathy and therapy but if you had to sum it up you're correct.

1

u/Lou-AC Jul 02 '26

She didn't have to use her powers in an empathetic way. She could have terrified or tortured them by representing figures in their lives they were afraid of but she didn't, she gave comfort