by Bradley Snipes
I am currently on hold with the United States State Department. Specifically, the Los Angeles field office, though the woman with the glacial patience keeps telling me I've actually reached the San Francisco office, and I keep telling her, "No, babe, I'm literally looking at the address on my phone—it's West L.A." Meanwhile, I'm standing in a private mansion in the Hollywood Hills, Aperol Spritz in one hand, phone pressed to my ear, oversized Gucci sunglasses sliding down my nose because apparently even indoors at 8 PM, the vibe doesn't check the itinerary.
This is the Spielberg preview soirée for Disclosure Day, and I am having a literal passport meltdown while Emily Blunt walks past me.
Let me back up. Last week—or was it two weeks ago? I've been living in Vienna time since my Eurovision piece dropped ("I Bet on Finland and All I Got Was This Existential Crisis and Some Really Good Cake," you're welcome), and jet lag has fused my circadian rhythm into what I can only describe as an experimental avant-garde performance piece. I got back to L.A. and realized: my passport is MIA. Somewhere between the Vienna airport, a very memorable night at a hotel bar whose name I cannot remember or confirm legally, and my apartment, it vanished. Like it knew something I didn't. Like it was trying to tell me something profound about the nature of freedom and—
"Sir? Are you still there?"
Right. Yes. The State Department woman. I am telling her that I need emergency replacement of my passport because I have a trip to New York—or wait, was I supposed to fly out? Emily Blunt literally just texted me—okay, fine, she didn't literally text me, but I replied to her Story about the film four days ago and she hasn't read it yet, but that's basically texting—and she was like, "This movie is going to change everything," and I took that as an invite to the after-party. Which evaporated, as all my invitations do, the moment I typed "omg can I come?" in the comments.
But here's the thing: the movie itself? It's actually happening.
Disclosure Day opens June 12, and Spielberg—Steven Fucking Spielberg, the man who invented summer blockbusters and then had the audacity to keep going—has made a sci-fi thriller about government conspiracies and alien disclosure, and it is REAL. Blunt plays Margaret Fairchild, a meteorologist-turned-journalist from Kansas City who stumbles onto the truth probably. Josh O'Connor is Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity whistleblower. Colin Firth is running some nefarious corporation called Wardex. Eve Hewson. Colman Domingo. Wyatt Russell. The cast is absurd.
And David Koepp wrote it. Forty-two drafts. I am standing here on hold with the State Department, listening to that hold music—you know the one, the PTSD flute—and I'm thinking about Koepp sitting down and writing forty-two versions of this screenplay. That's the most drafts of his entire career. Forty-two times he was like, "No, not quite right yet." Forty-two times he deleted and started over. That's not writing, that's a prolonged public breakdown with residuals. That's a cry for help.
"Sir? Hello?"
"Yes! I'm here! Can we please just—can I speak to someone about the emergency—"
The thing is, Spielberg was inspired by that 2017 New York Times article—"Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program." You know, the real one about actual government oversight of UFO phenomena that somehow became less shocking than a reality TV star's Twitter feed. Spielberg read that and went, "Yes, I will now spend two years making the most expensive meditation on disclosure and the weight of truth in the modern era," because that's what Steven Spielberg does and no one is stopping him.
John Williams scored it. His thirtieth collaboration with Spielberg. Thirtieth. These men have been working together since before I was cognizant of the passage of time (like born), and they're still making magic. The film was shot under the working title "Non-View"—which sounds like what you'd name a classified government document, and I mean that as a compliment—up in New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, February through May of last year.
And I am standing here. In the Hills. On hold.
A server walks by with champagne. I take a glass with my free hand. My sunglasses slip further. No one is recognizing me, which is as it should be—I'm a voice in the cultural conversation, not a face, thank God, a fact that has not once helped me with the State Department—but also, there's a part of me that thought, you know, after Vienna, after the Boom Boom Room moment, after everything, that maybe—
"Your call is important to us—"
I swear to God.
But here's what I realized, standing there, listening to that flute, watching the most powerful director alive give a speech about the film in a mansion with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the entire city: We are all on hold. Every single one of us. We're all waiting for the disclosure. We're all expecting some cosmic truth to come down from on high and explain why we're so desperately, achingly lonely despite being surrounded by people and screens and notifications. Emily Blunt is in this film trying to bring truth to the world, and I'm in this mansion trying to bring my passport back to my life, and we're both just holding. Waiting. Hoping someone picks up and says, "Yes, you're real. Yes, you matter. Yes, here's what you've been looking for."
But they don't. The hold music just plays. You drink your Aperol Spritz. You adjust your Gucci sunglasses. You make another call tomorrow.
Disclosure Day opens June 12 on IMAX. Go see it. Maybe it'll answer the questions we're all on hold for.
(I eventually got through to the right person. They're expediting my passport. I'm probably going to the after-party. Probably. I'll let you know.)
Bradley Snipes is the Entertainment & Pop Culture Correspondent for IRREVERENT, and an openly-gay millennial gossip maven with an inexplicable ability to secure invites to parties he consistently misses. He writes from West Hollywood—or New York, depending on which coast he's currently lost on. His last piece, "I Bet on Finland and All I Got Was This Existential Crisis and Some Really Good Cake," was filed from Vienna while he was having an existential crisis. He is currently trying to remember where he left his passport, his favorite jacket, and his dignity, in that order.