Apple TV + launches Alfonso Cuaron’s series ‘Disclaimer’ with Cate Blanchett leading a large cast

Dit’s hard to miss the “Disclaimer” series with the multi-awarded Mexican Alfonso Cuaron at the helm – Oscar for best director in 2014 (Gravity) and 2019 (Roma) –, also director of the third part of the “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” In front of the camera, we find Cate Blanchett – also two Oscar winners, best supporting actress in 2005 (Aviator) then best actress in 2014 (Blue Jasmine) –, Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen, Leila George and Louis Partridge.

Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline) has lived alone for several years and the death of his wife Nancy and their son Jonathan. As he finally begins to get rid of his wife’s clothes, he finds, hidden under a cupboard, a manuscript written by Nancy as well as photos of her son’s last vacation in Italy. On these, a naked woman in a bed.

Meanwhile, the story follows Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett), a journalist known for highlighting the misdeeds and transgressions of others, married to Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen). One day, in the mail, she receives a novel by an unknown author and published by an independent publisher, entitled “The Perfect Stranger”. The work is dedicated to “My son Jonathan” and a sentence on the next page reads: “Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not coincidental. » Scanning the first lines, it is clear that the author knows the secret she has been hiding for 20 years.

Temporal confusion

A new timeline takes place in Italy where Catherine and her son Nick, aged four at the time, are spending their vacation. The young woman then has an affair with a young man named Jonathan (Louis Partridge), whom she met a little earlier on the beach. All the eras then intertwine throughout the following episodes.

It is difficult to follow, at least at first, this complicated story. It also relies on voice-overs which explain to us the thoughts of the different characters. Another point is disturbing; the little resemblance between Leila George and Cate Blanchett, the two actresses playing Catherine, at two times separated by around twenty years. But this series is superbly filmed and directed by Alfonso Cuaron.