When Alfonso Cuarón won best director and picture in 2019 with his brilliant, heartbreaking black-and-white “Roma,” its two-plus-hour length and panoramic scope hinted that the movie could have easily been expanded into a series. His first project since that Spanish-language film is a seven-part slowburn thriller for Apple TV+. “Disclaimer” shares elements with that film: the struggle at the shore to save a son from drowning, the marital tensions percolating beneath the surface, and the power of memory to distort and reveal.
Because of this, the five-time Oscar winner seems like a natural fit to create a longer narrative with more time to ebb and flow, backed by the deeper pockets of Apple TV+. His choice is “Disclaimer,” a psychological thriller adapted from Renee Knight’s contemporary women’s fiction. Exquisitely shot by Emmanuel Lubezki and Bruno Delbonnel, “Disclaimer” fits into the quality, star-driven, female-in-distress category epitomized by “Big Little Lies” or “Nine Perfect Strangers” — or before that, “Gone Girl.”
Oscar winner Cate Blanchett takes the lead. She effortlessly plays posh, poised Catherine Ravenscroft. The TV documentary journalist burrows into the untidy parts of others’ lives, while thriving in London luxury, accepting accolades with a humbled-and-honored nod of her expensive blond bob.
Catherine controls her passive aggressive trust-fund husband Robert, played with restraint by Sacha Baron Cohen, there to share in the prestige production but a bit stunted by his character’s unexceptional arc. The couple shares pale, problematic, 25-year-old slacker son Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee).
Catherine’s perfect wife, perfect life is made to be kicked over like a sandcastle. One day, the ambitious filmmaker receives a self-published book called “The Perfect Stranger.” Nicholas receives one. Robert, too. Sooner or later, her work colleagues will, also. And her life will implode.
The slim volume reveals the intimate details of Catherine’s Italian beach holiday 20 years before, when her son was five. Robert leaves them early for work in London, as fathers do. And, according to the book, the younger Catherine (a sizzling Leila George) seduces a young backpacker with a camera named Jonathan Brigstocke (super sexy Louis Partridge, Sid Vicious in “Pistol”).
The sex scene between Jonathan and Young Catherine is rated a hard R — and intimately directed and shot. (No male full frontal.) With Nicholas asleep in the next room alongside his stuffed animal, Catherine seduces Jonathan and gives him the ride of his young life. In a society that rarely teaches boys how to satisfy women, the scene presents a case study in the how-to’s of cunnilingus. The young photographer also takes naughty snaps that show many private sides of Catherine.
The next day, they head back to the beach. Catherine appears irresponsible, distracted by sleep deprivation. She’s not so into her five-year-old, who wanders into the riptides in a rubber dinghy. Jonathan, also on the beach, runs to save Nicholas from the waves (remember “Roma?”), but fails to return to shore.
In an early twist, we discover that the hot volume has been released by Jonathan’s father, Stephen (a dramatic Kevin Kline, a ball of spit and spite that he shields in elderly gentleman stumbles and stutters). After 20 years of anguish and the cancer death of his beloved wife (ever perfect Lesley Manville), it’s he who publishes the manuscript and distributes the pornographic photos that crack all three Ravenscrofts. He wants Catherine to fall from the heights she’s achieved over his dead son’s body.
There’s a symmetry to the families — two triangles of pain and deceit. As in this genre of psychological thriller, what’s on the surface, however wave-tossed, has nothing on the tidal tsunami of past secrets, lies and infidelity. The narrative is a bit of a shell game as it unfolds from multiple perspectives, with Catherine at its center. “Disclaimer” demands some leaps of faith that not all viewers will be able to make.
The book within the show, relying on Jonathan’s photographs, tells a compelling story — but is it authentic? Is it really Catherine’s? She’s repressed the events in Italy so thoroughly that, for all her worldly savvy and success, she can’t process this version alleging to represent her perspective but not the product of her own words.
The central thread: Did Catherine, or did she not, have sex 20 years before in Italy with Jonathan? Did he rescue her five-year-old from drowning — and then did she, in an act of moral cowardice, leave the young man to drown by her own neglect? And, also true to the genre, there is a jaw-dropping twist that forces viewers to reevaluate everything they’ve already seen.
The seven-part miniseries is challenging to pull off, even when all the parts are impeccably cast, beautifully shot and directed by Cuaron. Toggling in time, and leaping from character to character, can dull the protagonists’ emotional impact. The biggest challenge is to grab audiences by the end of Episode 2, the third at the latest, so that they can’t breathe until they finish Episode 7.
“Disclaimer” is largely successful in maintaining suspense — but that eye-popping explicit interlude between Jonathan and Younger Catherine towards the end of the third episode ensures viewers will go all the way (to the end credits.)
“Disclaimer” premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It will stream Oct. 11 on Apple TV+.
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