Created by Alfonso Cuarón and based on the novel by Renée Knight of the same name, Disclaimer follows Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett), an investigative journalist whose life begins to fall apart when her past is violently and publicly uprooted by a vengeful, grieving father.
The series begins quite disjointed, with a series of flashbacks to 2001 Italy, where 19-year-old Jonathan (Louis Partridge) travels solo after his girlfriend is forced to return to London. Eventually, Jonathan crosses paths with Catherine (20 years before we are first introduced to her) and the two become tangled in a fervent love affair that ends with Jonathan’s tragic death.
Back in the present day, Jonathan’s father, Stephen (Kevin Kline), discovers a manuscript written by his deceased wife. With him inflamed with grief, he fictionalises the encounter and renders Catherine a Machiavellian groomer who took advantage of Jonathan’s sexuality, and then let him die once he was no longer of any use to her.
Her writing is accompanied by a series of erotic photos of Catherine, taken by the seemingly lovestruck teenager, which the parents interpret as evidence of her horrific crime. Stephen publishes the book in a triumphant effort to torment Catherine, and cause her as much pain as he possibly can. This demolishes her career and shatters her already fragile family dynamic into a million razor-edged pieces.
Led by Blanchett, who holds the series together, the cast of familiar faces do their best to make up for the script’s failures. Partridge trudges through a wilderness of unbearably cringey lines and comes out on the other side with a relatively successful depiction of juvenile awkwardness. His intimate scenes with Catherine (portrayed in her younger years by Leila George) are, therefore, excruciatingly uncomfortable.
Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen), Catherine’s tedious and uninspiring husband, is somehow the most frustrating character amongst a line-up of crazed liars and victim-complex maniacs. Cohen’s performance is slightly lacklustre, but he certainly gets the pathetic, emasculated cuckold archetype across. The couple are joined by their son, Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Smit-McPhee’s performance is, at first, chastened by the blandness of his stereotypical lazy teenager character. However, as things start to fall apart Smit-McPhee delivers a stand-out performance, arguably on par with Blanchett’s.
However, the true Achilles heel of the show’s writing is the mind-numbingly excessive use of narration. At times it might as well be an audiobook. Never has the hand of the audience been held so tightly and guided so condescendingly. The blaring announcement of the mentalities, motives, and moods of every single character at every single moment leaves absolutely nothing up for interpretation and is intensely distracting on many occasions. What’s the point of adapting a book to screen if you’re just going to tell the audience everything that happens instead of showing them?
But it’s not all bad – just about. Engaging visuals certainly make up for many of these odd directorial choices and jarring lines. Cinematographers Emmanuel Lubezki and Bruno Delbonnel pull their weight, equipping the series with a noteworthy style and tone. The show’s twist, while somewhat predictable, also manages to add some needed depth to the characters and plot.
Cuarón plants enough clues in the first few episodes that there is a satisfying payoff when the truth is revealed. It certainly doesn’t land like some stupefying curveball, but still clicks into place and brings sense to some of the gaping holes in the plot, which provides enough of a conclusion that the show feels worthwhile once finished.
It is, of course, not sensible for a thriller to rely so heavily on its twist. At this point, I was just a bit sick of watching Cate Blanchett run around London crying, and was relieved to actually start piecing the puzzle together.
The final episode is energetic and emotive, and when it matters most, manages to keep hold of the tension that the past 5 hours of television have generated. One of the last scenes offers arguably the perfect ending, featuring a harrowing exchange in which Robert scolds Stephen, asking him “Why didn’t you question it?”, to which the dejected old man echoes, “Mr Ravenscroft, why didn’t you?”.
What a shame then, that this gratifying ending is tarnished and nullified by the unnecessary final scenes, which offer nothing but another pile of insipid dialogue and an odd revelation that merely opens up more plot holes. This is followed by possibly the most pointless, obvious epilogue I have ever watched. Once again, the series patronises and guides the hand of the audience like a paranoid parent with a sugar-rushed toddler.
Disclaimer’s stacked cast and gripping visual style do a thorough job of painting over its damp, festering stain of a script. So, when Emmy season rolls around, I won’t be surprised to find it receiving at least a few nominations – and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Blanchett and Smit-McPhee undeniably earned their kudos. Plus, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a good time watching this.
Even if it wasn’t necessarily the viewing experience that Cuarón had envisioned, I tuned in every Friday, so who am I to judge? Sometimes a technically flawless masterpiece isn’t what you need. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit down with a nightmare of a series and enjoy watching A-list actors fall to their knees in a hospital corridor and sob like their life depends on that 2025 Emmy nomination. If that’s the case, then get your Apple TV+ subscriptions at the ready, as Disclaimer might just be the show for you.
2/5
