14/10/2024 - Starring a captivating Cate Blanchett, Alfonso Cuarón’s second-ever episodic effort is an emotionally peculiar beast that must be seen in full to be appreciated

Cate Blanchett in Disclaimer

“Your misguided belief that you had a right to silence has condemned you,” proclaims the ominous, disembodied narrator (Indira Varma) in Alfonso Cuarón’s limited series, Disclaimer, which the filmmaker has moulded into seven episodes of pure psychological turmoil for both his characters and his audience. The first two episodes of the series have just been released for streaming on Apple TV+ after screenings at Venice, Toronto and BFI London. This is Cuarón’s second-ever episodic effort after the short-lived US supernatural series Believe (2013-14) that he co-created — and this time he’s out for blood, transforming the pulpy bestselling 2015 novel of the same name by Renée Knight using the cinematic tools he knows best. This leads the Mexican filmmaker to a peculiar film-series hybrid filled to the brim with just as many vexations as thrilling moments, which certainly pays off by its final episode, but as for whether the journey along the way is worth all the effort? Your mileage may vary.

Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett) is a successfully documentary journalist who has made her name revealing unsavoury truths about people and institutions around the world — so when a novel turns up at her doorstep claiming to reveal her deepest buried secret, Catherine panics. The book’s contents alienate her straight-laced husband Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen, in another surprising dramatic turn after The Trial of the Chicago 7) as the man who published the book, Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline), intends to hold Catherine accountable for her actions by destroying everything she holds dear. The series also features Lesley Manville as Stephen’s wife Nancy, Louis Partridge as their son Jonathan Brigstocke and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Catherine’s son Nicholas.

Cuarón, who writes and directs all the episodes, graciously leaves no time until he brings the gavel down on Catherine. Driven by Blanchett's unwavering performance, Disclaimer plays between accessible family drama and campy revenge thriller to depict the unravelling of a neo-bourgeois English family. The narrator, who uses second person to refer to Catherine, notes that Robert's company is, in part, dedicated to using its subsidiary non-profits to evade anti-money-laundering measures. However, the plot points of the thriller narrative often border on tacky and unbelievable, supported by Kline’s perplexingly cheesy villainous performance.

There’s a bit of everything Cuarón throughout the series, which heats up in the erotics-heavy third episode — the filmmaker flexes the muscles he toned in Y tu mamá también — and into the anxiety-inducing fifth episode, carefully crafted like the simple but effective thrills of Gravity [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile]. In early instalments, Robert is even shot alone from afar in a quick-zoom, faux-documentary style as he begins to break, but this tonally jarring choice thankfully never makes a return. The series' present-day timeline is shaded a sterile grey with often voyeuristic lensing, while the past timeline is incredibly vibrant and warm-paletted, where Cuarón is brash and personal in how he frames his actors. This is accentuated by the enticing performance of Leila George as young Catherine — and a sort of fantasy Catherine, at that.

The filmmaker has a good grasp of conventional episodic transition devices and symbols, although he sometimes uses them too blatantly, such as the well-timed slicing of a fish head, a slowly suffocating cockroach under a cup and the crossing of paths with a fox. A tense and whining orchestral score by Finneas O’Connell also soundtracks the mental state of a wide-eyed Blanchett through the series’ last seconds: Disclaimer is never a boring ride.

Interestingly, its episodic breaks don’t always leave viewers wanting more — they might even be frustrated or repulsed and are, frankly, not to be blamed if they don’t wish to finish the series. In this manner, Disclaimer struggles to keep up with the weight of its own devastating message. But viewers are essentially forced to stick it out until the last episode to understand the emotional rollercoaster that Cuarón wishes to take us on. In doing so, he highlights the dangers of narrativisation and groupthink without critical thought, secondarily unpacking the trap that society places women in: no matter what women say or don't say, they are automatically villainised.

Disclaimer was produced by Cuarón’s Esperanto Filmoj (Mexico) and Anonymous Content (UK), and broadcasted via Apple TV+.

Photogallery 29/08/2024: Venice 2024 - Disclaimer

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Alfonso Cuarón, Cate Blanchett
© 2024 Isabeau de Gennaro for Cineuropa @iisadege