By George & Josh Bate
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Disclosure Day and Glass
As Steven Spielberg’s highly anticipated return to the science fiction genre receives rave reviews, the intricacies of its thought-provoking and, at times, quite dense third act are likely to undergo analysis from moviegoers everywhere in the coming weeks. The acclaimed director of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial is in direct conversation with the audience in Disclosure Day as he makes claims about the existence of aliens and poses questions to the audience that don’t exactly receive the most concrete of answers.
Although Spielberg’s film has received praise for the intrigue of its narrative, breathtaking filmmaking, and phenomenal turn from Emily Blunt, some have found issues with a third act that doesn’t resolve the story in entirely satisfactory fashion.
In watching Disclosure Day live up to its title and showcase the reveal of extraterrestrial life to the entire world in its awe-inspired final stretch, Spielberg’s film parallels a flawed yet nonetheless under-appreciated movie from M. Night Shyamalan in the most unexpected of ways. While Shyamalan often stumbles with the execution of this final act twists, Spielberg achieves a difficult feat that The Sixth Sense filmmaker recently attempted but ultimately couldn’t pull off.
What Shyamalan Tried (And Failed) To Do In Glass
Glass was the highly anticipated third and final installment in the Unbreakable trilogy, bringing characters together from Unbreakable and Split for an epic showdown. At least, that’s what it was billed as. The film, which sits at a 37% on Rotten Tomatoes, thrives with its intensity, intrigue, and presence of James McAvoy’s transformative performance but is let down by a poorly executed finale.
Glass concludes with the big reveal that Samuel L. Jackson’s Elijah Price / Mr. Glass had a secret plan all along. Elijah staged a sprawling fight outside of Raven Hill Memorial Psychiatric Hospital between Kevin Wendell Crumb / The Beast (James McAvoy) and David Dunn / The Overseer (Bruce Willis). The brawl culminates in all three lead characters – Elijah, Kevin, and David – dying and the clandestine organization of which Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) is a part of seemingly comes away victorious.
In the aftermath of the fight, however, Ellie discovers that Elijah organized the big superhero brawl and set it to live-stream. Elijah’s mother Mrs. Price (Charlayne Woodard), Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark), and Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) subsequently receive copies of the footage and release it to the public. This fateful decision gives the world definitive proof of the existence of superheroes. People all around the world are transfixed by the footage they see unfolding on their phones and on televisions. The film wraps up by suggesting that the world will never be the same again now that the presence of superpowered individuals is public knowledge.
What Spielberg Did Similar To (But Better) Than Shyamalan
Disclosure Day concludes in eerily similar fashion as Glass. Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) and Daniel Kelman (Josh O’Connor) successfully avoid the clutches of Wardex and make their way to Margaret’s television new station. For the whole film, Wardex and its boss Noah Scanlan (Colin Firth) have relentlessly pursued Margaret and Daniel to prevent the latter from leaking information that proves the existence of aliens to the public. On numerous occasions, it seems as if Daniel and his mentor Hugo (Colman Domingo) will fail in their objective, but, thanks to the help of an Emily Blunt with all kinds of supernatural abilities, end up overcoming their enemy and change the world forever.
At the Kansas City news station, Margaret and Daniel make their way through crowds of various employees, all of whom appear to be anxious as the world is on the brink of World War III. Margaret uses the abilities given to her by the little grey aliens when she was 10-years-old to convince her boss and various others to follow her instruction. As Margaret makes her way to the newsroom, Daniel loads up all the files proving the existence of aliens onto the news station’s hard drives.
From there, Margaret begins a broadcast that initially reaches Kansas City but soon after spreads around the entire world. Margaret discusses the coordinated efforts between Wardex and the U.S. government to cover up the existence of aliens before the files that Kelman stole from Wardex are presented for the world to see.
Much like how Mr. Glass oversaw a plan to publicly release videos proving the existence of superheroes, Hugo and Kelman oversaw a plan to publicly release videos proving the existence of aliens. The concluding moments of Glass and Disclosure Day bear more than just a fleeting resemblance – they are essentially identical conclusions, both tapping into the thought-provoking idea about how the world would react and change forever if our understanding of what is possible suddenly alters.
The difference in the conclusions, however, lies in execution. For as twisty and intrigue-filled as Glass is, Shyamalan fails to effectively tease the audience with what his film’s big conclusion will entail. Much of the movie is spent misleading the audience into thinking that Mr. Glass is manipulating Kevin into revealing himself to the world at the opening of Osaka Tower, a new skyscraper in Philadelphia, as Mr. Glass sets off explosives in a chemical lab in the building. There are certainly suggestions that Mr. Glass’ ultimate aim is to disclose the nature of superhumans to the world, but it is never entirely spelled out.
In turn, the disclosure day in Glass is treated as a plot twist, rather than an organic conclusion to a story. Especially in comparison to jaw-dropping twists in other Shyamalan films like The Sixth Sense and The Village, Glass underwhelms with its ultimate reveal.
Troubles with Glass’ resolution are made all the worse by the fact that, just before the reveal arrives, the audience witnesses its three main characters die back-to-back-to-back. This suddenly imbues the film with an exceedingly solemn, even bleak, tone, making it difficult to care for what happens next.
The poor execution of Glass’ disclosure day continues as people around the world watch the video of David Dunn and Kevin Wendell Crumb battle it out in front of Raven Hill. It is difficult not to chuckle at how transfixed everyone is of the footage. Shyamalan miscalculates how seriously people would take such footage and neglects to consider how many would dismiss it as fake. As a result, the film’s final note misses the mark. Rather than leave the audience with the sense that the world has forever changed and that the deaths of our protagonists are somewhat justified in the end, Glass concludes in unintentionally comical and unrealistic fashion.
Thankfully, Spielberg subverts such an ending in Disclosure Day. Unlike Glass, the entirety of Spielberg’s film is building up to the final 10-15 minutes. The movie is called Disclosure Day, which means it would be pretty underwhelming if a disclosure day didn’t eventually come to fruition. Making it clear from the inception that the world will find out about the existence of aliens means that the ultimate disclosure day is not treated as some plot twist or big reveal, as it is in Glass, but as a meaningful and deserved resolution to the story.
The execution of the disclosure day also feels more authentic and avoids unintended humor. Courtney Grace delivers a stunning and deeply emotive performance as a newscaster who picks up on Margaret Fairchild’s report and spreads it around the world. Grace captures the shock, awe, emotion, and confusion that would come from seeing footage featuring real-life aliens.
Disclosure Day also intelligently features a seemingly throwaway, yet vitally important moment in which a character authenticates the footage. Although one can’t scrutinize the plausibility of such authentication, at least screenwriter David Koepp had the wherewithal to quell uncertainty that the world would immediately dismiss the leaked Wardex footage as staged or the product of AI.
The parallels between Disclosure Day and Glass’ conclusions are striking, especially when one considers just how markedly different the two films are from one another. But where Shyamalan stumbles, Spielberg triumphs. While Glass’ disclosure day of the existence of superheroes feels unearned and is undercut by the preceding loss of the film’s three main characters, Disclosure Day organically builds up to such a climax and executes it with realism and without unintended humor.