Introduction
I’ve never really got the whole ‘If it were proven beyond all doubt that we Earthlings were not the top of the food chain in God’s universe, then organised religion would collapse overnight’ argument.
Why?
Christianity survived proof that the Earth was not the centre of the universe with the other planets revolving around it, though admittedly, it took a while, and the likes of Galileo got a bit of a hard time about it.
It also survived Evolution, with a few die-hards persisting with outright denial to this day, but the vast majority managing to incorporate Darwinian Natural Selection into God’s Great Plan.
I can see no good reason why they shouldn’t be able to accept extra-terrestrial life-forms as fellow members of God’s creative handiwork.
And Christians aren’t the only game in town when it comes to religion. Buddhists and Daoists would take such a development in their stride, as they do most everything. Indeed, when high-ranking Tibetan Llamas started arriving in the West in the fifties and sixties, many of them still thought the world was flat. They took the news that they’d been misinformed with little more than a rueful shrug.
Hindus have so many looking strange beings in their pantheon of Gods that I don’t think a few more would phase them unduly either.
I’m not sure where Islam stands on the issue, but if we were subjected to a hostile invasion involving vastly superior technology, I’d definitely, on current form, give the Shia a key role in marshalling our defence.
Of course, many people aren’t religious at all. But I have a more optimistic view of human nature, of human beings of all religions and none than the Guardian reviewer of this film in that I think that, if were to have a real Disclosure Day and be presented with verifiable true footage of spindly, harmless looking traditional ‘Grey’ type alien visitors being subjected to horrific experiments by a shadowy government (American, inevitably) backed corporate entity we would be righteously appalled.
Plot
I say all this because the ‘This film will challenge everything you think you know about God and our place in the universe’ angle has been one of the main selling points of the movie.
Actually, this was only a marginal, though important and interesting aspect of the film. We have some religious symbolism, a blink and you’ll miss it appearance by Jesus (and, to be honest, I did miss this, only knowing about it through Mark Kermode’s review on You Tube), but is largely explored through the character of Jane (Eve Hewson), a one-time Novice-Nun, whose mind is quickly put at rest as regards to what all these Alien goings-on she’s stumbled into mean for her Faith by a single quote from Genesis delivered by her kindly former Nun-mentor Sister Maura (Elizabeth Marvel).
Jane is the girlfriend of Dr Daniel Kellner (Josh O’ Connor). Daniel is a former employee of this shadowy corporate-government organisation, Wardex (perhaps a stand-in for Elon Musk’s Space X), after absconding with a huge cache of memory sticks upon which he has downloaded almost eighty years’ worth of absolute proof of Alien visitations, dating back to the notorious Roswell incident of 1947. He intends to use this cache to disclose this information simultaneously to the whole world. Wardex, led by the villainous Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth, getting to be the baddie for a change).
Meanwhile, beautiful but restless Kansas City TV weathergirl Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt, the real star of the show), who shares her life with bumbling, amiable and soon uncomprehending boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell, channelling Woody Harleston), begins to have strange experiences after a Disney-esque Red Cardinal bird (all of the animals in the film, which are actually Aliens taking on a form that is palatable to us humans, are Disney-esque, I think deliberately so) flies into their kitchen while she is expressing her desire to relocate for what is clearly the umpteenth time.
These experiences include being able to converse fluently in foreign languages she’s never learned, without knowing she’s doing it, the ability to read the minds of others, or to appear to them as long-lost loved ones.
Most of all, she is an empath, and ‘Empathy is a Superpower’ is the central, positive message of the film.
Soon, Margaret and Daniel are brought together by an equally shadowy, but benevolent group of ex Wardex employees, led by Hugo (Coleman Domingo), who are determined to help Daniel to finally get the Truth out there.
It becomes clear that this coming together and Margaret is no accident, that it has long been predestined by Close Encounters they’d had separately in their childhood, the memory of which they had suppressed.
They are to be the joint vehicles through which the existence of the Aliens will finally be revealed to the world.
The movie soon becomes a traditional chase/quest movie, taking place against a backdrop of a world on the brink of World War 3 over tensions on the Korean peninsula (due to the actions of the dastardly DPRK of Hollywood imagination).
There is one particularly thrilling chase scene involving a train in a scene that Spielberg has acknowledged as a conscious nod to Hitchcock’s North by Northwest.
It’s a Big Hollywood Steven Spielberg film, so it’s big in every way, impeccably directed, great cinematography, a big score by John Williams, plenty of thrills and spills, human interest and humour, all performed by a great ensemble cast.
Conclusion
I won’t give the ending away, though the title gives a pretty big clue as to who comes out on top in the battle between the Truthers and the anti-truthers. All I’ll say is that I found the climactic last twenty minutes or so to be both thrilling and moving.
There are criticisms to be made, for instance, the Alien device utilised by Margaret, Daniel and Co. in pursuit of their quest is something of a McGuffin. But I enjoyed the film too much to want to dwell on such things here.
Of course, you could, as some have, dismiss the whole thing as a fairy story based on conspiracy nonsense, and maybe I’m guilty of Confirmation Bias, because I want very much for extra-terrestrial visitations to be true. That is so because I have a heart and soul and don’t work for the Guardian.
But I’m not alone. Spielberg has called his original story a summation of both his cinematic work in the Science Fiction genre and his own longstanding studies of UFO/UAP sightings and abduction accounts. He believes the film to be true ‘in essence’, so the question really as to its quality as a movie should be, ‘Did Spielberg convince us that he is indeed a believer, and did he realise his vision in such a way as to make that belief seem plausible?’
On both counts, I say a big yes. I might have somehow missed Jesus speaking fluent Aramaic, with every word, of course, understood by Margaret, but I wasn’t bored for a single one of the movies two-hundred-and-twenty minutes: What more can you ask of a wet Thursday afternoon?
A worthy addition to the great Spielberg canon. Maybe not as groundbreaking as Jaws, ET, or its spiritual predecessor Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but a fine movie nonetheless.
Postscript
I’m aware that there is an alternative reading of this film that sees it as part of an ongoing Psyop, linked to the real-life disclosures promised by the Trump administration and the no doubt entirely benevolent ‘training’ being provided to American Evangelical ‘Pastors’ by Israel to prepare them for a potential faith-shattering series of ‘revelations.’ I don’t dismiss this reading out of hand and will certainly bear it in my mind when and if events linked to ‘The Alien Files’ unfold. But, for now, a deep dive into that particular rabbit hole could ruin a very good film.
Anthony C Green, June 2026
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Screenplay by David Koepp, from a story by Steven Spielberg
Music by John Williams
Starring
- Emily Blunt
- Josh O’ Connor
- Colin Firth
- Even Hewson
- Wyatt Russell
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