Disclaimer opens with a warning not to trust what you see in the frame. Then it proceeds to show you how misunderstood photographs can destroy your life.
Disclaimer was written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón. I was not impressed by this 7 part series. I found it confusing and all over the place. The tension you would expect in a thriller was not there until the very end. I saw the twist at the end coming, which is not something you want in a suspense thriller.
Catherine (Cate Blanchett) is a documentary filmmaker. She’s married to Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen). They have a grown son, Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Much of the story takes place 20 years in the past, in Italy. Nicholas was a child. Catherine was played by Leila George as a young woman.
One day in the present Catherine finds a book beside her bed. It’s about her, about something that happened years ago in Italy. She recognizes the story but gets very upset about it. She seeks out the author to ask him to stop sending the book around to her family and people she knows.
The book was written by Nancy (Lesley Manville). Years after her death her husband Stephen (Kevin Kline) finds a manuscript and a set of sexually explicit photos of young Catherine and Stephen and Nancy’s son Jonathan (Louis Partridge).
Stephen self-published the book and sent it to Robert and Nicholas. Robert realized it was about his family and believed everything in the book about an affair Jonathan and his wife had.
Young Nicholas had almost drowned. He was saved by Jonathan, who did drown. In her book, Nancy blamed Jonathan’s drowning on Catherine.
Stephen gleefully plans to destroy Catherine and her son based on what he’s read in his wife’s book. Catherine is chasing around after him trying to talk to him about the book. Robert is jealous and angry and plans to leave Catherine.
When Catherine finally gets her chance to tell her side of the story to Stephen, things change. Cate Blanchett was a minor actor through most of the series which was heavy with flashbacks. In the last episode, when she finally tells her story, Cate Blanchett gets to dominate the series. She’s finally being heard and her story is dynamite.
The cast in this was very good, as you would expect from such quality people. Kevin Kline was particularly interesting as the elderly old coot bent on revenge. The characters were different from anything you’ve seen these actors do before. I found that pleasing. Cate Blanchett was obsequious and servile through most of it – not what we usually see. Lesley Manville fell completely apart with the death of her son. Kevin Kline was deadly in his bedroom slippers and too-tight cardigan.
Even with all that going for it, I found Disclaimer scattered and definitely below what you’d expect from a cast like this and director like Alfonso Cuarón. It’s streaming on Apple TV+ if you want to give it a try. Please share what you thought of it if you do give it a watch.
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Dear Ms. DeBolt,
In the 1st paragraph of your newsletter for Disclaimer (2024) and the related review in your website, you wrote:
“…misunderstood photographs can destroy your life.”
Of the 3 photographs that you chose for the review, you labelled only 1 of them!
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I’m very happy that you printed at least 1 label;
otherwise, it would have been understandably difficult to identify Young Catherine AND Leila George
{yes, of course I was interested,
to name the good-looking actress in your chosen photograph}.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Perhaps you would consider, kindly add 1 line {or 1 name} to each photo for your reviews, in future?
That would be a significant and noticeable improvement, definitely, to help us understand and learn more from your reviews 🙂
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
The characters were identified in the text, but I added some more explicit labels to help you figure it out.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
The adding of more info
makes stuff easier
to understand!
That’s a positive thing 🙂
No name at all,
in general,
makes stuff harder
for identification.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
On the other hand, just
one name for the
one person in the picture
{or 2 for 2, et cetera}
may be enough,
sufficient for identification
{Young Catherine, plus
my own investigation
with the IMDb, equals
Leila George}.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Your most recent
utilisation of brackets
{in tags for photos}
is very cool 🙂
Although I do worry
that it might be a burden,
perhaps too much work
in the long run.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Thank you, Ms. DeBolt,
for your consideration
and
some informative additions.
ONE single word,
ONE name each for
two of the photos
in your review about
The Spitfire Grill (1996),
SUFFICIENTLY great!
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Thanks again for trying to
make life easier,
for this subscriber
to your newsletters,
an OAD reader 🙂
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Thanks for reading! I appreciate it.
Given my impatience with watching any story that’s strung out over several weeks, I did what I typically do and waited until after the final episode aired to binge watch Disclaimer. My experience went something like this:
Episode 1. Annoyed with the opening scene; but the rest of the episode is intriguing. I quiet my skepticism and sign up for the Apple free trial. Let’s see where this story goes.
Episode 2. Though the characters are vague, the acting is holding up. The story’s mood is gripping, the tone tense enough that I remain interested.
Episode 3. My recall is unclear, but I think this is the episode where the script took a free fall into gratuitous sex, and the full-on male gaze style of filmmaking that I abhor. My dignity as a woman feels violated; the violation manifests as anger. This does not feel good.
Episode 4. Anger is joined by exasperation as character actions that should be dramatized continue to be relegated to narration. The narration itself is often unnecessary. Character motivations are buried. Every single character (except the cats) has proven themselves unlikable and unworthy of empathy. The flashback-heavy story has become incoherent and boring. I keep watching because I’m too tired to find anything else to watch.
Episode 5. Oh-oh. I begin to notice that I’m watching Disclaimer for the pleasure of flinging the full force of my fury at it.
Episodes 6-7. I hate-watch the rest of the series. This, I enjoy (for cathartic reasons not all to do with the series).
A few years ago, I swore off any ‘female-centric’ movie or TV series that was both written *and* directed by a man. Write or direct the story, but not both. This, because in my experience, too often male writer-directors settle for titillation where psychological insight and emotional depth and nuance are needed. This year, to my dismay, I violated my avoid male writer-director oath twice (Poor Things, Disclaimer). Lesson learned, though, this is unlikely the last time I’ll be taking the lesson.
It upsets me when women like Cate Blanchett and Leila George take roles like this. Or work with men like Woody Allen – or in this case Alfonso Cuarón. And what woman spends her time imagining her son’s sexual exploits?
Same. Though I admire Cate Blanchett’s talent, I lost admiration for her as a person when she defended her decision to work with Woody Allen by saying that the accusations against him were a family matter. I was livid! That was totally self-serving on her part; totally tone deaf to the situation, and dismissive of the reality that Allen’s “fascination” with under-aged girls appears several times in his movies. I’m thinking particularly of Manhattan. That ongoing interest doesn’t just happen for “artistic” reasons. Muriel Hemingway even publicly stated that Allen tried to arrange with her parents for Muriel to go on an unchaperoned trip with him. Shame on Cate.
I’d never heard of Cuarón, or seen any of his work, to my knowledge. Suffice it to say, I won’t be watching anything else; particularly, anything that has a female protagonist.
And yep, the mother’s obsession with her son was totally cringey. Revenge and grief have always been two of my least famous themes in storytelling. Here we got both. Martyrdom to grief is by far the most grating handling of the subject. Argh!
Well said. I appreciate your comments so much. Thank you.