Alfonso Cuarón’s star-studded limited series Disclaimer* is best watched without any prior knowledge of the plot. A twisty tale of different narrative viewpoints, the thriller never meets the potential of the promising opening episode.
Cate Blanchett (Borderlands) stars as Catherine Ravenscroft, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and journalist holding onto a 20-year-old secret. She’s married to the wealthy food snob Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen), who likes to show off his expensive wine collection because he can. They have a directionless son in his twenties, Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is wasting his privilege on drugs and a job in retail.
This perfect upper-middle-class life is about to go very wrong when Catherine receives an unsolicited copy of a book entitled The Perfect Stranger. Viewers must suspend belief when Catherine immediately reads the book, which mysteriously arrives at her door. Her family also receive copies of this book in mysterious jiffy bags and reads it like it’s a normal occurrence.
Catherine is sure the book is about her and the secret she’s kept from her husband and son for decades. Throughout Disclaimer*, Blanchett gives a masterclass on a woman remembering why she hates herself as the past is uncovered. The slow unravelling is reminiscent of the great performances of the likes of Gena Rowlands and Elizabeth Taylor.
In what initially appears a separate narrative but soon weaves into the story is the story of Jonathan (Louis Patridge). The young Brit is travelling around Italy with his girlfriend until she has to leave after a family emergency. Alone in paradise during his gap year, he soon makes friends with an older woman (Leila George) who is travelling alone with her young son.
Audiences soon learn that the mysterious novel has been sent by former teacher Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline), who indirectly blames Catherine for the death of his wife (Lesley Manville, brilliant with the minimal screen time given) and son.
In the opening episodes, these three stories feel frustratingly distant but soon interweave and form the entirety of Disclaimer*. The show purposely, and sometimes smugly, tricks the audience using a meta-yarn of voiceovers, passages from Stephen’s novel and unreliable flashbacks. Disclaimer* proudly throws audiences into the deep end with no lifejacket and expects them to stay afloat.
The show is narrated by the omnipresent Indira Varma (Game of Thrones), who lures audiences into believing she is reading Stephen’s novel out loud. The narrator flips between points of view and tone, manipulating the expectations of the audience. It’s like watching a magic trick; you know you are being fooled but annoyingly you can’t quite figure out how.
Cate Blanchett elevates the material given with ease. In the hands of a lesser actress, Catherine would be a one-dimensional middle-class journalist archetype. Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm) can’t quite match Blanchett’s talents and mostly fails as her scene partner. It’s an unusually serious role for Cohen, who always looks like he wants to turn every scene into satire. At times, his wine connoisseur snob dives into parody despite the serious subject matter.
Kevin Kline (A Fish Called Wanda) is more theatrical in his performance as a seemingly withdrawn widower with one goal in life. He switches between performative anger and genuine grief. His scenery-chewing as a literary John Wick especially contrasts Blanchett’s more naturalistic approach, occasionally coming across as silly.
The plot of Disclaimer*, which is best left unspoiled, requires an immense suspension of belief from viewers. Less of a psychological thriller and more of a fable, Disclaimer* plays with audience presumptions and how much they will believe the stories presented to them.
His first foray into television, Cuarón’s Disclaimer* is one of the best-looking shows of the year. Working with the cinematographic partnership of Emmanuel Lubezki and Bruno Delbonnel, the Academy Award-winning director has not limited his vision for the small screen. Even the most mundane scenes, such as a man buying a vacuum cleaner or a kettle boiling, are shot in the most cinematic and beautiful way possible.
Adapted from Renée Knight’s 2015 novel of the same name, Cuarón chooses to use emotional tension over narrative tension to keep viewers hooked. Avoiding cheap cliffhangers and shocks, Disclaimer* slowly drips out the truth via explosive dialogues and fragmented flashbacks.
The different perceptions and subplots become tangled, distancing the audience from the characters. The decision to introduce the same event from different perspectives makes the story harder to follow and creates a wall between the viewers and the story.
The first five episodes slowly unravel the plots and characters, building up to what promises to be a thrilling finale. The last two episodes rush the conclusion and resolve it all a little too neatly. Disclaimer* is a show about people wanting stories to be resolved with obviously defined heroes and villains, but in reality, it’s not that easy. Yet, ultimately, the show presents a clear-cut story, with every loose end neatly explained in the final episode.
Disclaimer* wants to be smarter than it is. Aiming for literary fiction and ultimately delivering a slice of soap opera. It’s too smugly self-conscious in its warping of the truth, with audiences made aware too early in proceedings that unreliable narrators are manipulating them.
UK • USA | 2024 | 7 EPISODES | 2.00:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH • ITALIAN
Cast & Crew
writer & director: Alfonso Cuarón.
starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, HoYeon Jung, Louis Partridge, Lesley Manville, Leila George & Indira Varma (voice).
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