Disclaimer review: A dark, sexy path filled with twists and turns
Apple TV+ limited series
If I’m sitting down to watch something, it’s far more likely to be a movie than a television show, but Apple TV+ has had most of my favorite shows in the past few years. I have missed quite a few of their recent releases, but when my critic friend Aayush Sharma absolutely raved about the new limited series Disclaimer from director Alfonso Cuarón coming to Apple TV+ in October, I decided to give it a watch. And it was a reminder once again that if you’re looking for quality television, you should absolutely subscribe to Apple TV+.
This erotic thriller follows Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett), a documentary filmmaker who receives a small novel titled The Perfect Stranger, and as she makes her way through it, she becomes horrified to realize that she seems to be the central character. The book reveals a story about a loathsome woman (Leila George) who has an illicit affair with a young man and then allows him to drown to preserve her secret.
The book is published by former teacher and widow Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline), who blames Catherine for the death of his son and indirectly for the loss of his wife. Nancy (Lesley Manville) never fully recovered from the loss of their son Jonathan (Louis Partridge), locking herself into his room and creating The Perfect Stranger to explain what she believed happened to him during a trip to Italy twenty years earlier.
Meanwhile, when Catherine’s wealthy husband, Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen), is confronted with the details of the book, he does his best to protect himself and his aimless son, Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee), from the blowback likely to happen when more people make the connection between the character and his wife. But even he cannot guess at what is coming down the road for his family.
The twists and turns of this erotic thriller are captivating. Cuarón delivers something that is both unsettling and gorgeous. The gauzy visuals when we are in the middle of the novel contrast beautifully with the darker style when the story returns to the present. The viewer constantly ricochets between the breezy, sexy Italian vacation that ultimately results in the death of a young man, leading to a horrifying and grittier-looking present.
The performances are absolutely riveting, perfectly balancing the melodrama of the story with the far more serious themes of sexual exploitation, grief, and the way that creation can sometimes overtake the truth to such a degree that we are unable to distinguish between what is fact and what is fiction.
The minor characters are all brilliantly cast. Smit-McPhee has a morose look that allows you to believe that he’s a young man who is reliant on his family’s wealth and is struggling to find his way in the world. Both George and Partridge have a fascinating job of changing their performances based on who is recalling the past, and they do it to near perfection.
Cohen fully embodies the middle-aged husband, so tied up in the trappings of wealth that he is unable to see the way that his family is falling apart. Kline inhabits the lonely older man, so intent on the story that his wife spun about their son’s death that he doesn’t question her version, taking on her desire to destroy Catherine as his own. And Blanchett is spectacular as a woman who has held onto a secret for two decades. Through the series, we see how that has unraveled her, even before it seems that the story will be released.
The themes explored in this are all approached with nuance and compassion. Because this is a slow-burn series, the structure itself reinforces some of the themes. Revenge, secrets, grief, complacency - all of these are examined throughout the series, and often, just as the viewer believes they have a handle on it, something will happen to change the narrative again.
Disclaimer is not the show to watch if you’re looking for easy answers or moral clarity. This series will challenge viewers with its slow reveal and characters who spit in the face of righteous behavior. But if you approach it with an open mind, it could be one of the best things that you watch this year.
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Disclaimer will premiere on Apple TV+ on October 11, 2024.
I’m intrigued by this one because of Cuaron and the actors but this one feels like another Cate Blanchett as “Notes on a scandal” type persona. I’m over the older woman seducing the younger man stuff of “the Graduate” but darker… prove me wrong please