Photo: Universal Pictures

Right before Christmas last year, Universal released its first official teaser for Steven Spielberg’s melancholy alien thriller Disclosure Day. The most immediately notable moment in the trailer was Emily Blunt’s newscaster breaking out in alien-speak during the weather report, but what happens right after that is truly astounding. The teaser cuts to a shot of Elizabeth Marvel as a skeptical nun that IMDb refers to as Sister Maura, watching something on TV and lowering her glasses in … disbelief? Anger? It’s an amazing shot, full of intrigue, featuring an actress we all like flanked by a bunch of women also playing nuns. I’ve seen this shot at least once and more likely three times a week since the end of last year. Depending on my mood, the experience is entirely kaleidoscopic: Sometimes seeing Marvel lower her glasses fills me with joy and laughter; other times fear; and on occasion, a dogged desire to know the truth. What the hell is she doing in the movie?

None of us have any idea. Subsequent trailers for Disclosure Day have revealed additional plot details, like that Josh O’Connor’s and Emily Blunt’s characters knew each other as children, and that Wyatt Russell is involved, and that director Steven Spielberg himself wants us to know that he knows aliens are real. But Spielberg and Universal continue to withhold details about Sister Maura. All we ever see of her is the one shot of her watching TV and lowering her glasses. It’s what I’ve seen every single time I’ve gone to the movie theater or tried to watch a YouTube video since last December. The titular disclosure in Disclosure Day no longer has anything to do with aliens in my book. It has everything to do with Sister Maura. “People have a right to know the truth,” O’Connor says in the trailer, and I agree: I deserve to know more about Sister Maura as played by Elizabeth Marvel.

The release of Disclosure Day marks the end of an era. There are some shots from trailers that become iconic — from Tom Cruise jumping off a cliff on a motorcycle for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One to A Star Is Born’s Jackson telling Ally he just wanted to take another look at her. Sister Maura joins the pantheon of those images. “This summer, all will become clear,” Disclosure Day trailers tell us. We’re ready.

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