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- Blanchett and Kline Are an Oscar-Winning Duo
- Visually Striking & Tragic All at Once
Disclaimer: Any revealing of spoilers and surprising plot developments below is not to be expected.
Perhaps the average cinephile was taken aback to learn that Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón had forayed into television for his latest project, Disclaimer. But we couldn't wait, especially after learning that a series of Academy Award winners and nominees would lead the cast, as well as past Cuarón collaborator and three-time cinematography Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity, Birdman, The Revenant) behind the lens as director of photography.
Plus, Cuarón — who wrote each episode in addition to directing, having adapted Renée Knight's acclaimed novel of the same name — recently revealed at the current Venice International Film Festival that he basically approached this whole project as a film. In other words, fret not that the masterful filmmaker has switched to the small screen for his newest outing. Prepare to be stunned in more ways than one. This Apple TV+ adaptation will floor fans of the novel, and will certainly dominate next year's awards circuit.
Blanchett and Kline Are an Oscar-Winning Duo
If Blanchett wants to continue chipping away at a future EGOT status, Disclaimer is certainly a valiant effort. Mrs. America on FX certainly previously made its mark and earned her a nomination, but Disclaimer offers what feels more in line with a movie star-like role. At age 55, the Australian performer is still pumping out stunning performances, and her latest character, Catherine, is often reduced to tears and utter distress.
Catherine is a successful journalist who is already accepting her latest prestigious award as the thrilling new miniseries opens. Her loving husband Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen, nailing this more serious turn) is by her side during big moments like these, and especially at her more vulnerable ones — like when she receives a mysterious manuscript in the mail that seems to detail a secretive backstory of hers that she's kept from Robert and other loved ones, such as her standoffish adult son Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee).
Disclaimer is chronicled across seven chapters, which is a wonderful service to the groundbreaking and twisty novel, for that matter. To reveal anything beyond the pilot's developments here would be cruel and (mostly) unusual, not that we're tempted to do so. The series' teaser trailer that has been released successfully keeps things under wraps, to the point where someone who's read the novel might even watch the teaser and think, for example, that it is Kline who plays the husband of Catherine, not Baron Cohen.
Luckily, Kline — pulling off a flawless English accent here — has his own separate journey, a sort of dueling main-character storyline that will establish the Oscar winner as a Best Lead Actor contender in next year's Emmys race, with Baron Cohen and Smit-McPhee to be slotted in the supporting character.
There's also Academy Award nominee Lesley Manville (The Crown, Phantom Thread) in the mix here as a shoo-in for supporting actress, come awards circuit. The reliable ferocity she's brought to past acclaimed projects shines through in her episodes of Disclaimer, especially opposite the more soft-spoken and collected Kline. Their dynamic as a couple in distress often mirrors that of Catherine and Robert's, but fret not when you realize the disjointed nature of the overall narrative.
Playful Narrative Style
The masterful storyteller that is Cuarón never fails to keep things clear and on track, with focused and confident plot developments that are supplemented by meta-like narrators dedicated to their respective storylines. The nature of such narrations won't be spoiled here, but they're not merely expository in nature and instead add an eerie, inside-the-mind quality that will send quiet chills down your spine — especially the unique way in which the respective narrator addresses Catherine's harrowing journey while spellbinding events unfold.
Additionally, with Lubezki and Oscar nominee Bruno Delbonnel as the show's DPs, it's safe to heighten your expectations on the visual front. Just as the legendary Steven Soderbergh dedicated a distinct look to each storyline within his award-winning film Traffic (2000), the central characters of Disclaimer are delightfully captured in purposefully different ways, with shaky visuals for one and then smooth, graceful tracking shots for another, as an example.
Visually Striking & Tragic All at Once
The stakes are unsurprisingly raised with each episode, with Disclaimer further solidifying the notion that certain iconic novels shouldn't necessarily be restricted to the 90-120 minutes of a feature film. Cuaron once directed a Harry Potter film adaptation — the third and arguably best of the bunch — and with Disclaimer, he ups the ante by staying true to Knight's novel and even building on the source material in unexpected ways, which only a more expanded miniseries would truly allow for.
It all contributes to a gargantuan, multiple-country-spanning story that's essentially about a race against time, as Catherine uses her journalistic skillset to try and uncover who's reaching out to her and her loved ones in an effort to defame her, in connection to past traumatic events. The "disclaimer" as alluded to in the title reads, "Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not a coincidence," which is also seen in the jaw-dropping manuscript that proceeds to shatter Catherine's existence.
As for the series' opening line, "Beware of narrative and form" — as TV enthusiasts, we can confirm that the only thing to "beware of" here is the consumption of your future Friday evenings, once you've devoured another episode and proceed to debate what just transpired with those around you. Ready the online forums!
Disclaimer will begin streaming on Apple TV+ on October 11 following its recent premiere at the Venice International Film Festival.
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