Disclaimer Movie Review and Movie Summary (2024)

“Beware of narrative and form,” Christiane Amanpour says in the opening minutes of Apple TV+’s new series “Disclaimer” about one of our protagonists, acclaimed documentary journalist Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett). “It can bring us closer to the truth, but it also has the great power to manipulate.” Indeed, Alfonso Cuarón’s seven-part limited series for the streamer, an adaptation of Renee Knight’s 2015 novel, is a masterpiece of the form; The goal of his story is, of course, manipulation. Not just its characters, mind you, but also its audience, systematically unfolding a two-pronged tale of delicious revenge and the joy with which we both share and witness it. And like so many Apple TV+ series before it, it becomes a beautiful tapestry woven by one of our amazing filmmakers, with top-notch talent in front of and behind the camera, which will undoubtedly be seen by too few due to its streaming location.

When we first meet her, Ravenscroft is on top of the world: she has a fawning husband, Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen, petrified and submissive), a healthy if undemanding and restless son, Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee). , and a successful career at the top of their field. But all that threatens to fail when a book arrives on her doorstep: “The Perfect Stranger,” with a disclaimer that Catherine treats with caution: “Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is not coincidental.”

The more she reads, the clearer it becomes to her: the protagonist is her, recounting an unpleasant chapter twenty years ago when, during a vacation in Italy, she (Leila George) began an affair with a much younger man, Jonathan (Louis Partridge), then Nicholas a toddler. We learn that Jonathan later died saving Nicholas' life, giving Catherine the perfect excuse to keep their affair a secret. Thanks to this book, her life and reputation may now be in turmoil.

And who is responsible for such a turbulent tome? Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline), an over-the-top private school teacher and Jonathan's father. While Catherine's life is one of glamor and prestige, he leads a humble, down-at-heel life. His wife Nancy (Lesley Manville in flashbacks) has died several years earlier, and he isolates himself from the world, lost in her remaining possessions and nude photos of Catherine that confirm the story. It is Nancy who wrote the manuscript, a guess based on these photos and what she knows about the events. When Stephen finds it in a far away drawer, he decides to have it published – to punish the woman responsible for the destruction of his family.

Fair warning, dear reader: “Disclaimer” is not a comfortable watch. Throughout the seven chapters we witness the destruction of a woman and the devilish glee with which a bitter old man does it. Cuarón's lyrical script and elegant direction play with expectations and assumptions, drawing you into one perspective before switching to another. (Visually, there are shades of “Y tu mamá también”'s warm, handsy sexuality in its gauzy, soft-focus flashbacks to Italy, of “Children of Men”'s tedious desolation in the present-day sections; cinematographer Bruno (Delbonnel and Emmanuel Lubezki seem to be the visual passing the baton between them.) It feels like watching a war; with each new copy of Stephen's book that falls into the hands of a new friend, loved one or colleague, we see it fall like a bomb into Catherine's In response, she becomes increasingly defensive and unable to explain her crimes, which only increases her feelings of guilt in the eyes of her accusers. And then we cut to Stephen, barely hiding his grin as a grin as his trap tightens falls to.

Both Blanchett and Kline are superlative in their roles, orbiting each other like a double star of burning resentment. Shades of “Tár” are obviously in abundance as Blanchett plays another powerful woman fighting back over her own unexpected rejection. But Kline plays carefully in channeling Stephen's grief (his stumbling around the house in Nancy's moth-eaten pink cardigan, her favorite jacket) into the “Oldboy”-like long game he wants to play with Catherine.

It's relentless, and intentionally so; “Disclaimer” is a portrait of pain and the fingers we point when we need to direct that pain elsewhere. Frankly, it also points the finger at us and the Stephen-like joy we and others can feel when we see someone we consider lesser, someone we deem lesser bad Get your just desserts. Sometimes, the theory goes, we're only too happy to join the booing crowd, even (or especially) if it gives us the chance to put someone privileged in their place. But all that grimness can sometimes threaten to drag you down; There's no lightness that can really soften the blow, especially as it nears its inevitable, tables-turning conclusion. Aside from the steamy eroticism of the Italian flashbacks (filtered through the subjective narrative of the novel within a story), I can't see much room for escape, glimmers of a thrilling affair whose impact extends across decades of grief and mystery.

But no one comes to “Disclaimer” looking for solemnity, and you won’t find it either. Instead, it's an elegantly woven tapestry of agony that grabs you by the head and forces you to stare at the catastrophe in the lives of two people caught in the tide of pain. What's worse, you'll see in clear, crisp detail how the drowning pulls everyone around it under the current in desperation. After all, it is said that before you want revenge, you have to dig two graves.

Entire series screened for review. The first two episodes now on Apple TV+.