Cate Blanchett plays Katherine Ravenscroft in new Apple TV+ series Disclaimer.
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Apple TV+
Ever since streaming became popular, I’ve wondered why people who produce television don’t take advantage of that freedom.
Sure, creators often talk about how they make 10-hour movies. But it’s often just a hollow rant to cover a project whose skeletal ideas drag on and on for what feels like hours, or an episode aimed primarily at increasing engagement. Sometimes it’s a hodgepodge of anxiously packed plot points.
And then projects like Apple TV+ come along. Disclaimer. This seven-episode series takes advantage of the breadth and sophistication of streaming to tell a story that steadily evolves from one thing to another.
In the process, it subverts expectations by asking pointed questions of both characters and audience.
A woman who has it all faces her deepest secrets
It all starts with Catherine Ravenscroft, played by Cate Blanchett. She’s a journalist and documentary filmmaker who one moment is successful enough to win a high-profile award presented by CNN star Christiane Amanpour, and the next she’s tricking her colleagues into making Jodie – Made people believe that Foster would appear in the film adaptation.
She’s a high-achieving, work-focused alpha female, played brilliantly by Blanchett – see her 2022 Oscar nominations tar – Flanked by a well-meaning but reckless husband and an emotionally unstable son.
Catherine, who lives a glamorous upper-middle-class life, is a character who is easily envied and suspected. So when a lightly fictionalized novel of an extramarital affair with a young man from decades ago arrives in her mail, it’s hard to spot. Sympathy for a woman who seems to have betrayed everyone in her life.
The book titled perfect strangeris prefaced with an eerie disclaimer: “Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not coincidental.”
The novel depicts the terrifying self-absorption that Catherine desperately tries to hide. The article details how a woman had an affair with a young man who later drowned while trying to save her son, and how she told police she didn’t know him to cover up the relationship.
A journalist famous for exposing other people’s secrets seems to have a horrifying secret of his own.
Kodi Smit-McPhee plays Catherine’s son Nicholas, and Sacha Baron Cohen plays her husband Robert Ravenscroft.
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A story that progresses carefully
It’s hard to explain the many twists and turns this story takes without spoiling the experience. And the plot, adapted from Renee Knight’s 2015 novel and crafted with an auteur’s flair by writer-director Alfonso Cuaron, is too predictable and far-fetched to have the power he clearly intended. Some people may feel that it is impossible to do so.
However, I found myself charmed by Cuaron’s patient and attentive style. (You’d spend far too much time thinking about the inner life of a cat who always appears at Katharine’s house at odd moments, expertly framed by the director’s lens.) It’s a story that moves forward carefully in its reveal, but never completes an episode without providing forward momentum, leaving you with new clues, bigger questions, and a desire to know more.
Cuaron is a Mexican film director whose name is associated with ambitious films such as: gravity and romeassemble the ace cast here. Sacha Baron Cohen is convincingly gutted as Duchess Kate’s husband Robert, and Oscar nominee Kodi Smit-McPhee brings maximum emo energy as her drug-addicted son Nicholas.
But despite decades of starring in Oscar-, Emmy- and Tony-winning productions, it was Kevin Kline who was a revelation. Though an American often cast in stereotypical Yankee roles, Klein here deftly plays the quietly bitter British widow Stephen Brigstock, a former private school teacher devastated by the loss of his wife.
Kevin Kline as Stephen Brigstock.
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Apple TV+
Klein, with his perfect accent and disheveled style, plays Brigstock as a man grieving a family life shattered by loss and stumbled into an ambitious and ruthless plan for revenge.
He blames Catherine for his son’s death, which occurred after the two met many years ago. Mr. Brigstock vows to make her pay by circulating copies of the book.
Alternating narrators bring different perspectives
Even the narration is complicated here. While Klein’s characters often reveal their thoughts by speaking directly to the viewer, Catherine’s thoughts are expressed through the narration of an omniscient female narrator. About Her voice sometimes sounds like a book voice. (And, admittedly, it can be confusing, probably on purpose). There are also flashbacks in which Klein plays Brigstock as a young man and another actress, Leila George, plays a younger version of Katherine.
All of this lends itself to a story that explores the power of storytelling and the dangers of the assumptions that are used to make us believe.
Yes, the ending is dramatic while spotlighting these ideas in harsh terms. Some people may find it too manipulative and a bit over the top.
But I’m a well-known filmmaker who truly makes every second of the seven-episode length count, giving the time, talent, and resources to great filmmakers to weave a story perfectly suited to the streaming space. I thoroughly enjoyed the story.
I hope some other people working in this industry are paying close attention.
