Josh O’ Connor | Bouquets & Brickbats

12/06/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

In 1974, I went to the cinema to watch Sugarland Express, the debut movie from new kid on the block, Steven Spielberg. In the review I subsequently wrote, I probably said something to the effect that here was a young man with a bright future ahead of him. I could have had no inkling back then that, in just one year’s time, a film called Jaws would be a complete game-changer and that it would herald the arrival of a cinematic behemoth. Spielberg is now in his eightieth year and, over the decades, has accrued one of the most impressive backlists of all time. Okay, there are a few duds in there (The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I’m looking at you) but, happily, the misfires have been few and far between. Having said that, I am quite unprepared for just how good Disclosure Day is.

First things first. It’s pointless to give too much information about the actual plot because, on paper, it does sound faintly preposterous. But part of the film’s strength is the way it flings viewers headlong into what seems like an unfathomable mystery and keeps us guessing as to where the story is headed, a position it maintains until the final furlong. And then, in that last stretch, it somehow manages to create a sense of pure wonder, recalling earlier hits like Close Encounters and ET.

The story begins in 2026, and the world stands poised on the brink of what looks suspiciously like World War 3. (Too close to home?) We are in the audience at a wrestling match, where we witness Dr Daniel Kellner (Josh O’ Connor) being arrested for theft – though at this stage, we have no idea what he’s supposed to have stolen. He is confronted by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), the head of a powerful and secretive government organisation called Wardex, and we learn that Scanlon is Daniel’s former employer. Daniel manages to escape and goes on the run with his girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson), but even she doesn’t know what he’s accused of.

The action cuts to Kansas, where TV weather girl Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) unexpectedly starts speaking in tongues on live TV – and shortly thereafter, discovers that she has inherited incredible skills. It’s clear that she and Daniel are linked somehow – but it’s quite some time before I begin to suspect that the two of them will be the ones to make the titular disclosure that will resolve decades of lies and subterfuge…

Disclosure Day is a powerful and compelling drama that has about it something of those paranoid 70s Cold War thrillers, where two opposing forces struggle for supremacy. Leading the fight for disclosure is Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), another former Wardex employee, who seems prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the truth is handed to the public. Scanlon and his team are the ones who want to keep everybody in the dark, convinced that ordinary people will be unable to accept the truth without losing their collective minds. While all the actors here do exemplary work, Blunt is required to handle most of the heavy lifting, going through a whole range of personas as the various twists and turns of David Keopp’s script – co-written with Spielberg – demands ever more of her. I’ve long been convinced she’s a terrific actor and here she finally gets the chance to really prove it.

And it’s not all talk: there are hair-raising action set pieces (a car/train interface is a particular high point); a scary sequence from Margaret’s childhood that has an eerie prescience; and recreations of key events in UFO folklore (and yes, I’m aware the American government prefers the term UAP – Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon). Janusz Kaminski’s cinematography looks absolutely exquisite and veteran composer John Williams actually came out of retirement to provide another of his stirring scores. What’s not to like?

Whether this will bring in the punters is yet to be determined. I hope so. It’s proper grown-up filmmaking of the kind we don’t often see these days but it doesn’t help that it arrives in UK cinemas just as World Cup fever erupts. But those who have given up on Spielberg after recent more modest efforts are sure to find much to enjoy here.

And as ever, this is a big concept that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen available.

4.7 stars

Philip Caveney

06/09/17

God’s Own Country is an extraordinarily accomplished debit from writer/director Francis Lee. Heralded by some critics as ‘Brokeback Yorkshire,’ it tells the story of a young farmer, Johnny (Josh O’ Connor) who’s reeling from the weight of expectation heaped upon him. His father, Martin (Ian Hart) has had a stroke, so all the heavy work falls to Johnny, but Martin still decides exactly how the farm is run, and doesn’t appreciate how unhappy his son is. The two men, along with Martin’s mother, Deidre (Gemma Jones) have an isolated existence, albeit in the beautiful Yorkshire countryside, and Johnny relies on heavy drinking and occasional joyless sexual encounters to get him through the days. He’s inarticulate almost to the point of silence: his grunts and mutterings are not much clearer than the noises made by his beloved animals. He’s definitely not ‘out,’ despite the regularity of his gay encounters. But who would he come out to? His father and grandmother have no idea of who he is or what he wants; he barely seems to know himself.

When Romanian farmhand Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu) is taken on to help with the lambing, Johnny is at first resistant to the newcomer, wary of an interloper, unwilling to be exposed. But the two young men discover a mutual respect, realising they share a lot of the same skills and values, and their tenuous friendship soon takes a sexual turn. And then they fall in love.

Make no mistake, this is a bleak and brutal film, that doesn’t shy away from the realities of farming – nor of sex. We are presented with bodies in many forms: a slick newborn lamb is slapped into breath; a dead calf is kicked savagely away from its lowing mother; the grunting, heaving urgency of two men who want to fuck is contrasted with the devastating helplessness of a disabled man who cannot bath himself.

There is real misery here, and desperation, but there’s hope too, and, ultimately, love. It’s an astonishing first feature and an absolute joy to watch.

4.6 stars

Susan Singfield