1994 American film
Disclosure is a 1994 American thriller film directed by Barry Levinson, starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. It is based on Michael Crichton's novel of the same name.[2] The cast also includes Donald Sutherland, Caroline Goodall and Dennis Miller. The film is a combination thriller and slight mystery in an office setting within the computer industry in the mid-1990s. The main focus of the story, from which the film and book take their titles, is the issue of sexual harassment and its power structure. The film received mixed reviews from critics but was a box office success grossing $214 million against its $50 million budget.
Plot
Bob Garvin, founder and CEO of DigiCom, a computer technology company, plans to retire when his company merges with a larger company. Production line manager, Tom Sanders, expects to be promoted to head of CD-ROM division. Instead, Meredith Johnson, Tom's ex-girlfriend, is brought on to handle the merger, as Garvin wanted to "break the glass ceiling".
Meredith calls Tom into her office, ostensibly to discuss problems with Malaysia-manufactured CD-ROM drives. However, Meredith seduces him. Tom allows her to perform oral sex but rebuffs her attempts for sexual intercourse. As Tom leaves, Meredith angrily threatens him.
Tom later discovers that Meredith has filed a sexual harassment complaint against him with the help of legal counsel Phillip Blackburn. To save the merger from a scandal, causing Garvin to lose $100 million if the deal falls through, DigiCom officials demand that Tom accept reassignment to another state. If Tom accepts, he will lose his stock options in the company, his career will be ruined, and he will be left jobless when the other location is sold following the merger.
The desperate Tom receives an anonymous e-mail from "A Friend". It directs him to Catherine Alvarez, an attorney specializing in sexual harassment cases. Tom decides to sue DigiCom, alleging Meredith harassed him, though this causes animosity with his wife and colleagues. At the initial mediation, a tearful Meredith repeatedly lies and blames Tom. Garvin, believing the merger will fail without her, proposes Tom drop the lawsuit in exchange for keeping his position. Tom suspects Meredith's accusations are vulnerable. He remembers mis-dialing a number on his cell phone during the encounter with Meredith, but not hanging up, thus capturing the entire event on a colleague's voicemail. Tom rejects Garvin's proposal and plays the recording at the next meeting, discrediting Meredith. DigiCom agrees to a settlement calling for Meredith to be quietly eased out after the merger.
As Tom celebrates his apparent victory, he receives another e-mail from "A Friend" warning him that all is not what it seems. Tom overhears Blackburn telling Meredith that although they lost the sexual harassment suit, they will make Tom look incompetent at the next morning's merger conference since Tom is unaware of what is causing the CD-ROM drive issues Meredith alluded to earlier. Since the production line in Malaysia is Tom's responsibility, he can be fired for cause.
Accessing the company database for clues, Tom finds his access privileges revoked. Using a virtual reality demonstration device with access to the company database, he accesses DigiCom's files but finds that Meredith is already deleting them. Tom's Malaysian colleague faxes him copies of incriminating memos and videos. They show that Meredith, and one of the heads of operations in Malaysia, changed Tom's production specifications to gain the Malaysian government's favor and cut costs to make DigiCom appear more profitable to complete the merger. These changes caused problems with the Malaysian CD-ROMs line. To save her career, Meredith (with Blackburn's support) staged the sexual encounter with Tom to falsely accuse him of sexual harassment, forcing him out of DigiCom and covering for her mistakes.
When Tom makes his presentation at the conference, Meredith immediately brings up the production problems. Tom publicly shows the evidence that exposes her direct involvement in causing the hardware defects. Garvin, realizing the full extent of Meredith's incompetence and deceit, fires her.
Garvin announces the merger's completion and names Stephanie Kaplan to head up the Seattle operation, a decision Tom supports. Tom then asks Stephanie's son, Spencer, a University of Washington student, if he knows "A Friend". Spencer confirms he is Professor Arthur Friend's research assistant at the university. Tom realizes that Spencer would have had access to Friend's email account, enabling Stephanie (via her son) to warn Tom as "A Friend", as she knew what was happening involving the CD-ROM drives and Meredith. A grateful Tom happily resumes his position as head of manufacturing.
Production
Michael Crichton sold the movie rights for $1 million before the novel was published.[3][4] Miloš Forman was originally attached to direct but left due to creative differences with Crichton.[3] Barry Levinson and Alan J. Pakula were in contention to take the helm and Levinson was hired.
Annette Bening was originally set to play Meredith until she became pregnant and soon dropped out.[5] Geena Davis and Michelle Pfeiffer were then considered before Levinson decided to cast Demi Moore. Crichton wrote the character Mark Lewyn for the film specifically with Dennis Miller in mind. The character from the book was somewhat modified for the screenplay to fit Miller's personality.
The visual effects and animation for the film, including in particular the virtual reality corridor sequence were all created and designed by the visual effects technicians at Industrial Light & Magic.[6]
Filming locations
The movie was filmed in and around Seattle, Washington.[7] The fictional corporation DigiCom is located in Pioneer Square, on a set which was constructed for the film. Production designer Neil Spisak said, "DigiCom needed to have a hard edge to it, with lots of glass and a modern look juxtaposed against the old red brick which is indigenous to the Pioneer Square area of Seattle. Barry liked the idea of using glass so that wherever you looked you'd see workers in their offices or stopping to chat. This seemed to fit the ominous sense that Barry was looking for, a sort of Rear Window effect, where you're looking across at people in their private spaces."[6]
Also shown are the Washington State Ferries and Capt. Johnston Blakely Elementary School on Bainbridge Island, where Douglas's character's family lives. Other locations include Washington Park Arboretum, Volunteer Park, the Four Seasons Hotel on University St., Pike Place Market and Smith Tower (Alvarez's law office).[8] The director of photography was British cinematographer Tony Pierce-Roberts.
Marketing
The film's marketing touted it as the first Hollywood movie with major stars to address the topic of sexual harassment.[5][9]
The press kit for the film was the first multimedia press kit issued by Warner Bros. with them producing it on floppy disk.[10]
Soundtrack
The score of Disclosure was composed, orchestrated and conducted by Ennio Morricone. Original Motion Picture Soundtrack from the Film Disclosure was released by Virgin Records on January 24, 1995.[11]
Track listing
- "Serene Family" − 4:11
- "An Unusual Approach" − 7:07
- "With Energy and Decision" − 2:07
- "Virtual Reality" − 6:24
- "Preparation and Victory" − 4:04
- "Disclosure" − 0:49
- "Sad Family" − 1:29
- "Unemployed!" − 1:10
- "Sex and Computers" − 2:50
- "Computers and Work" − 2:00
- "Sex and Power" − 2:33
- "First Passacaglia" − 4:21
- "Second Passacaglia" − 1:41
- "Third Passacaglia" − 4:33
- "Sex, Power and Computers" − 4:23[12]
Release
Box office
Disclosure was a financial success, grossing $214 million worldwide ($83 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales and $131 million in other territories), against a budget of about $55 million.[13][14] It became one of director Barry Levinson's most successful films after his initial successes with Good Morning, Vietnam and Rain Man.[15]
Critical reception
Critical response was mixed, with some lauding the film's take on sexual harassment and others critiquing its plot, character development and implausibility. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle praised the film and said Douglas makes for "a complex and sympathetic Everyman", adding, "along the way it paints a picture of corporate America that in itself is a kind of horror story".[16]
Ian Nathan of Empire gave it four stars out of five and called it "genuinely gripping", further stating that "Demi Moore makes an awesome femme fatale".[17]
Critic Roger Ebert called the film's theme "basically a launch pad for sex scenes" and further said, "yet the movie is so sleek, so glossy, so filled with Possessoporn (toys so expensive they're erotic), that you can enjoy it like a Sharper Image catalog that walks and talks."[9] He also criticized its convoluted plot, of which he said, "I defy anyone to explain."[9] He added: "As the movie started, I expected a sexy docudrama about sexual harassment. What I got was more of a thriller and whodunit, in which the harassment theme gets misplaced. Too bad, since the best scenes involve the attorneys for Moore and Douglas, and especially the scenes where Douglas' attorney sets out in chilling detail what a lawsuit is likely to do to his life. There's also an intriguing subplot involving Douglas' relationship with his wife (Caroline Goodall). Much could have been made of this material. Much has been made of it. But not the same much."[9]
Marjorie Baumgarten of The Austin Chronicle observed: "In its rush to push hot buttons, Disclosure neglected some essentials of good storytelling."[18] The New York Times critic Janet Maslin wrote much of the film "is talky and uneventful, with legal maneuverings and corporate strategies substituting for more energetic drama".[19] Maslin concluded, "The storytelling of Disclosure is too forced and polemical to be on a par with better Crichton tales like Jurassic Park. This time, it's the author who's the dinosaur."[19]
Some critics described the characters as flat and lacking dimension.[20][21][22] The Washington Post's Desson Thomson felt that the script left out key sections of the novel.[22] Others noted Meredith's motives went unexplored,[23][24][2] with some opining Moore is stuck playing a thankless femme fatale role.[25][23][26] The Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan said while the film is "adequately entertaining", it lacks a "creative passion."[2] He added "screenwriter Attanasio, who dealt thoughtfully with ethical dilemmas in Quiz Show, works in a more limited moral palette in Disclosure, where questions of who is right and who is wrong are plainly obvious. The idea that sexual harassment is about power, not sex, and that a woman in power can potentially misbehave just like a man may be news to certain segments of the population, but they are not news enough to light a much-needed fire under this production."[2] The climactic virtual reality scene has since been singled out for its datedness and "silliness".[27][28][20]
Critics claimed that the movie was about the male cultural fear of feminism and powerful women in the workplace.[23][24][29] Some critics expressed their disappointment that though the film purported to be about sexual harassment, the topic is merely used as a plot device as part of a broader corporate thriller story.[26][21][2][15] In the Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington wrote: "there's a fairy tale quality about Crichton's resolution. Supposedly Disclosure is about sexual harassment as a universal problem. But, on a deeper level, it's probably about the fear of men in the modern corporate world that women have them at a disadvantage. It suggests that a really evil, conscienceless-and sexy-woman can manipulate that changed climate to destroy a decent but non-political man (because she'll be believed when he won't)."[20]
The supporting cast, particularly Roma Maffia and Donald Sutherland, received positive reviews.[18][25][26][19] Commendation was also given to the film's production design, particularly the DigiCom offices.[19][21][2][20]
The film has an approval rating of 59% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 63 reviews.[30]
Year-end lists
In popular culture
The adult animated sitcom Big Mouth parodied the film in "Disclosure the Movie: The Musical" (season 3 episode 10), featuring a raunchy stage musical adaptation starring pre-teen students.[33]
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