FAQ

DigiCom, a Seattle software company, is planning a $100 million merger with another company, Conley-White. Much of the credit for bringing about the merger goes to operations executive Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore), so Bob Garvin (Donald Sutherland), founder and president of DigiCom, is planning to name Meredith as the new vice president. Meredith, a former girlfriend of production manager Tom Sanders (Michael Douglas), uses her position to force Tom into having sex with her. Tom files a charge of sexual harassment against Meredith, and Garvin is afraid that it will result in Conley-White backing out of the merger, so they cook up a plan to get Tom fired.

Yes, Disclosure is a 1994 novel by American novelist Michael Crichton [1942-2008]. The book was adapted for the movie by screenwriter Paul Attanasio.

Those who have both seen the movie and read the book say the book is more detailed, both character-wise and in the plot line. For example, one detail left out of the movie is that Meredith Johnson actually changed her appearance in order to look more like Bob Garvin's recently-deceased daughter, in an underhanded attempt to wheedle her way into his favor. A major change, however, is in the focus of the story. In the novel, the focus is more on corporate malfeasance and the lack of proper disclosure during merger negotiations (hence the original meaning behind the title). Overall, the sexual harassment charge was more of a subplot in the novel, a convenient way to sweep Tom Sanders, who was in a position to derail the merger, out of the loop before he could get to the bottom of the problem in Malaysia. This sexual harassment subplot is made into more of the focus of the movie.

''A Friend" turns out to be Stephanie Kaplan's (Rosemary Forsyth) son Spencer (David Drew Gallagher), research assistant to Dr. Arthur Friend at the University of Washington. This was made apparent at the end of the film in which Tom is speaking with Spencer ("So you'd have keys to his office and the password to his computer?"). Stephanie told Spencer what to write because she couldn't e-mail Tom directly and risk it being traced back to her.

The only people in the Seattle office who knew about the changes at the plant in Malaysia were those who made up DigiCom's "power base" (Bob Garvin, Phil Blackburn, Meredith Johnson, and Stephanie Kaplan). No one else in the Advanced Products Group knew about the changes. If Tom were to solve the problem based on direct-info from Stephanie, the others in the power-base would have suspected her immediately because (1) Phil and Bob were completely behind Meredith, and (2) Tom was locked out of his access to the company database and files, but mostly because (3) Stephanie wasn't going to risk the possibility of Tom spilling the beans under pressure, especially if he couldn't produce the faxes from Malaysia to prove he wasn't incompetent. By not giving Tom all the information, but telling him only to "Solve the Problem!", Stephanie was able to push Tom into solving the problem on his own.

They weren't injecting anything into the bag. They were removing "sealed" air from within the bag. Don Cherry's (Nicholas Sadler) group was performing the diagnostics on the shipment of 10 heat-sealed units that came directly from the Malaysian plant. The novel explains that the "PPU 7 11(!) 52" scribbled on the notebook refers to "particulates per unit" and is a measurement of particles in the air. The specs maintained that they were supposed to use "level 7" air handlers, which should have resulted in a PPU reading of 11, but the reading obtained by diagnostics was 52, a clue that there was a problem with the cleanliness of the Malaysian production line.