‘Disclaimer’ — Alfonso Cuarón Composed a Master Thriller Fuelled by Sex, Grief, and Revenge
The Mexican auteur’s first mini-series on Apple TV+ is a slick narrative puzzle, oozing with intrigue and depravity
When we are introduced to one of Disclaimer’s most memorable protagonists, Steven Brigstocke (Kevin Kline), early on in Chapter I, we can sense a sort of inner decay manifesting. It's not clear what it is yet, or where it comes from, but we can almost see how this miserable man’s soul is rotting and dying inside. The clues speak for themselves: he’s a listless and resigned private school teacher who goes home to an empty apartment in London every day. A place that used to be a happy one, but now it only breathes grief and loneliness since Brigstocke first lost his beloved son, and then, as a consequence, his wife many years ago. Now, he’s giving Nancy’s (Lesley Manville) clothes to charity and the painful memories of a long-ago life are rushing back to him. He’s got a story to tell that you’ll never forget.
This is one of several perspectives in Alfonso Cuaron’s latest psychological thriller, based on Renee Knight’s novel of the same name, a non-linear puzzle of interconnected stories broken into small segments that keep crossing each other. It’s a seemingly odd and confusing storytelling approach at first, but by the end of the first episode, we can piece together a narrative rooted in a tragedy that had a long and devastating effect on everyone involved.
The adversary to Kline’s Brigstocke is Cate Blanchett’s Catherine Ravenscroft, a prestigious documentary journalist with a loving husband (Sacha Baron Cohen) and a troubled twentysomething son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Catherine’s idyllic life is upended by a novel she receives in the mail that uncannily recounts a horrible event that happened to her on an Italian vacation decades ago. The book might seem like a work of fiction, but she knows it’s not — it’s about her, and not in a good way. She buried that memory and kept it secret from everyone for so long because if the truth came out, she’s convinced, it could ruin her professional and personal life. What happens in the book is told through flashbacks from a young British man’s point of view, which mysteriously coincides with Catherine’s haunting past.