As one of Apple TV+’s new series “Disclaimer” starts, one of the protagonists and award-winning documentary journalist Catherine Ravenscroft aka Cait Blanchett is being introduced. Christiane Amanpour raises the warning that the journalist should, “Beware of narrative and form.” In fact, the broader theme of the seventh episode multi-part series of Alfonso Cuarón’s novel is based on the adage, “It can bring us closer to the truth, but also has the power to do much harm,” which is why it is without a doubt a work of art. The intention of Clark quite unambiguously in mind is to twiddle not only the characters of the tale but also the audience as they freely opened from within the eyes of a delectable twin-poled tale of glee-filled revenge. Similar to other series on Apple TV, this one has also become an eye-catching work of one of the most famous directors combined with a golden cast which is too bad because it is streamed on Apple TV.
We first meet Ravenscroft as a woman on top of the world. The provisions given are a bit vague, but it mentions a loving husband Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen, here appearing stony and sycophantic), a fully grown son Nicholas (Kodi Smit McPhee), and a career at the top of her field. Everything seems to be very ordinary, which all threatens to come crashing down with the arrival of “The Perfect Stranger”. The book comes with its own disclaimer which reads, “Any resemblance to living or dead persons is completely coincidental. As of this moment, Ravenscroft’s poster shows cracks all due to her life and reputation being threatened.
The more I look at her in detail, the more recognizable she becomes; Leila George, who as a much older woman portrays the lead is indeed herself staring into a mirror and reminiscing a chapter from two decades ago. Leila recounts a miserable time when she traveled to Italy with toddler Nicholas and had an affair with her much younger boyfriend, Jonathan (Louis Partridge). It is later revealed to us that Jonathan died saving Nicholas, and this offered Catherine a superb excuse to conceal her affair with him.
Who is the author of such a disordered book? It is Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline), a private school teacher and Jonathan’s father. While Catherine’s life is full of glamor and prestige, his life is one that barely scrapes by; after the death of his wife Nancy (Lesley Manville in flashbacks) several years ago, he secluded himself from the world and got lost in the belongings she left behind, alongside nude photos of Catherine that support his tale. It was indeed Nancy who authored the manuscript and seems to draw her knowledge from the photographs. It is Stephen who, after discovering the document in an outlandish drawer, decides to get it published. His reasoning is to deal with the woman that he feels has wreaked havoc upon his family.
Consider yourself warned, “Disclaimer” is not just a cozy watch. Cuarón’s supple script: a taut monologue. As we move over the 7 chapters, the cinematographers Bruno Delbonnel and Emmanuel Lubezki cinematically pass the visual baton to one another, and a woman is unmade while Richard III grins mercilessly. He rather behaves like Time is a tyrant waiting to pounce on mockingly feeble women. It feels like watching a war being waged. Further witnessing Catherine grow more and more defensive, unable to explain her crimes away only compounds her guilt. Where every copy of Stephen’s book landing in the hands of a friend, or a loved one feels like a bomb coming into Catherine’s life. In response? She digs her heels in deeper, going more on the defensive. Finally, we cut to Stephen who is barely concealing a Cheshire cat lair in his face has a grin and his trap has long since closed.
Both Blanchett and Kline are superlative in their roles as they circle one another reminiscent of a binary star where each starts with an all-consuming hatred toward the other. Shades of ‘Tár’ are undoubtedly present with Blanchett, once more depicting another powerful woman who is trying to come to terms with her surprising cancellation. But Kline delicately mulls Stephen’s grief (as he shuffles in his late wife’s favorite moth-eaten pink cardigan) into the ‘Oldboy’ style long con he plans to set up against Catherine.
In many ways, this film is quite brilliant and startling and perhaps this goes especially for the way Stephen the character is developing on the first day of his job. Stephen is overly joyful about how his life just seemed to get better after performing terribly during the exams. Pouring salt on this wound is the fact that like me, there are a million kids around the world who genuinely wish they were living in the United States rather than going through personal hell in the “greatest nation on earth”. Reality is very brutal and all the ‘super woke’ pundits say is coping in the most elegant fashion. And the long-lasting impact of the same turned the people who dished out the ‘corruption or America’ delusions into tragic laughs. Most importantly, this comes from the unquestionable ability to scrutinize and apologize from such uncommon angles and realize how disabled the human perspective can be.
Nobody seeks any form of seriousness while watching the disclaimer, it’s just not there. Instead one would rather call it a beautifully crafted piece of agony that grabs you by the head and makes you look at the disastrous lives of these two individuals who seem to be caught in a vortex of suffering. Moreover, it is worse when you can see the energetic detail of how the individual who is about to drown is going to take everyone around them into the current along with him. It is said, after all, that revenge does require two graves to be dug before it can start.
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