Unveiling (1994)

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Movie
German title revelation
Original title Disclosure
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1994
length 123 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Barry Levinson
script Paul Attanasio
production Michael Crichton ,
Barry Levinson
music Ennio Morricone
camera Tony Pierce-Roberts
cut Stu Linder
occupation

Unveiling (Original Title: Disclosure ) is a 1994 thriller from director Barry Levinson with Michael Douglas and Demi Moore in the lead roles. The film is based on the 1993 published novel Disclosure (German book title: Unhüllung ) by Michael Crichton .

action

Tom Sanders lives in Seattle with his wife Susan and two children and is the director of production at the high-tech company DigiCom . The company is planning to merge with Conley-White, and since he has stock options on Digicom, that would make him rich due to the expected price increases. He also expects to be promoted to Vice President of Development and Planning in his company shortly .

Sanders learns that CEO Bob Garvin is filling the position with Meredith Johnson, who has only recently joined the company, and that he helped Garvin with a merger problem. Sanders also had an affair with Meredith years ago.

Meredith invites the married Tom to a meeting in her office that evening and tries to seduce him into sex. When Sanders rejects her and leaves, Meredith is upset. The next day, Sanders is accused of sexual harassment , so he is advised to move to Austin financially unfavorable . Sanders wants to defend himself against the allegations and see the lawyer Alvarez. With their help, he threatens DigiCom with a lawsuit for sexual harassment in the workplace under Article 7 of the Civil Rights Act .

Since the company with which one wants to merge is very conservative, if a sex scandal became known in the company, the merger would burst. DigiCom is forced to approach Sanders and seek an agreement with him so that the case does not become public. Both parties will then meet for an arbitration meeting.

In the meantime he keeps receiving anonymous e-mails with comments and tips, some of which are signed with "A Friend". Sanders later finds out that the emails are being sent from the computer of a chemistry professor named Arthur Friend at the University of Washington , who has been in Nepal for weeks and whose office is locked.

Sanders recalls making a phone call at the beginning of the meeting with Meredith and not turning off his cell phone afterwards. Everything that happened that evening was recorded on the tape of an answering machine. He receives a contract that assures him of his previous position as well as compensation. Sanders now thinks he has won, but another anonymous e-mail warns him that appearances are deceptive and that it is not over yet.

Sanders has recently been struggling with production problems when manufacturing a new CD-ROM drive called "Arcamax". He overhears a conversation between Meredith and Garvin's assistant Blackburn and learns that he will be fired the next day for incompetence due to production problems with the drive.

The next day, Meredith cross-examines the management of her own company and the merger partner Sanders. She tries to blame him for the technical production problems. Sanders can present evidence that Meredith herself caused the improper savings problems at the Malaysia facility .

Meredith is released and Garvin installs Sanders' colleague Stephanie Kaplan in her place, who immediately announces that she wants to make Sanders her right hand. Stephanie brought her son Spencer Kaplan with her. It turns out that he is a student at the University of Washington and was the research assistant of Prof. Arthur Friend with access to his computer and thus on behalf of his mother behind the anonymous, helpful messages.

Reviews

Franz Everschor argues in the lexicon of international films that the topic of sexual harassment in the workplace is taken up “in significant inversion”, because “it is not the woman but the man who feels threatened”. He continues: “Embedded in the above all visually fascinating description of a modern company, the bestseller film adaptation can be understood as an illustration of lost male self-confidence. The solution to the conflict does not correspond to the expectations that have been built up, but instead takes refuge in commercially cheap clichés ”.

Verena Lueken reports in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that director Levinson desperately needed a box office success. That is why he “shied away from any risk in his Crichton film adaptation and made a flawless mainstream film from a narrative by no means perfect popular ham, which elegantly evades all explosiveness, if there is no other way, even into the virtual spaces of disembodied communication”. The commercial success of the film in Germany, which the critic was expecting at the time of the review, is "probably only in the slightest part due to the subject, to a greater extent due to the Hollywood machine, which runs at full speed in all individual performances, and to the cast". Michael Douglas played his part "with the routine won in Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct " and Demi Moore mastered the "not very challenging role of the unscrupulous career woman with great physical effort and always bare legs appropriately one-dimensional".

Michael Althen defines the film in his review for DIE ZEIT via the leading actor: Disclosure is "more of a Michael Douglas film than a Levinson film". He also sees the film in a series with, among others, the feature films mentioned by Verena Lueken and consequently as “another chapter in the tragedy of a ridiculous man”. He also shares the criticism with his assessment that the film is “slippery”. On the other hand, it is “this smoothness in which every movement of vitality works like a grain of sand. Sometimes one has the impression that reality is fighting its final battle of retreat against virtual reality ”.

For Hellmuth Karasek , the revelation , which he discussed in SPIEGEL , is a “cool film shot with impressive Hollywood perfection”. However, he lacks depth in the portrayal of the characters: “As effective as 'revelation' is made, as precisely as it shows the social behavioral patterns of a modern company in their viciously polished superficiality - the film gives both of them because of its sophisticated intrigue plot The main actors, especially the cold, sparkling Demi Moore, hardly have a chance to even allow a look behind the offended facade ”. With his “office intrigues, court interrogations and demonstrations of virtual reality”, he also adds another level of interpretation: For Karasek, the film also includes a “frightening milieu study of a brave new world - that of total employment with a modern company”.

Anja Seeliger's criticism in the taz also points in this direction : In the modern, glass offices, which among other things allow everyone to see everyone at any time, she sees the "scenario for a horror film" - and yet director Levinson has " filmed the most conformist film I've ever seen ”because“ Tom [Sanders] just doesn't hit the wall, he doesn't even think about hitting the wall ”. Their rationale lies in the message that films like this would broadcast: "See how loyal we are to our company". Director Levinson is "far from" to denounce the working conditions in this company, which "has an unlikely resemblance to the court of Louis XIV."

James Berardinelli stresses on ReelViews that the film is an "effective thriller" but does not adequately address the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. He praises the game by Demi Moore, who would play a villain after a few portrayals of sympathetic characters.

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Revelation. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 13, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ Verena Lueken : Women without stockings only have a short-term career . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 5, 1995, p. 25.
  3. ↑ Michael Althen : Please do not touch! . In: DIE ZEIT , No. 2/1995.
  4. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek : Violence against men . In: Der Spiegel , No. 1/1995, p. 134.
  5. ↑ Anja Seeliger: No, no, no, no, no, no . In: Die Tageszeitung , January 5, 1995, p. 17.
  6. ↑ James Berardinelli: Disclosure . In: ReelViews , 1994, accessed July 13, 2020.