The superb series Disclaimer ended today on Apple TV+. While we were praising it last month, it's time to look back at the finale of Alfonso Cuarón's new gem. Warning, article full spoilers!
Episode 7 of Disclaimer finally available, it's time to approach the richness of the story told by Renée Knight and Alfonso Cuarón! Little reminder: Disclaimer began with Catherin Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett) receiving a mysterious book by Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline). This retired professor having literally stopped living 10 years earlier because of the death of his wife Nancy (who died of cancer and played by the immense Lesley Manville) was indeed fomenting personal revenge.
Disclaimer: Rashomon effect
The famous “disclaimer” intended for Jonathan (Louis Partridge) quickly found its meaning, while the series focused on telling us the point of view of the Brigstockes' son in 2001 during his trip to Italy. It is in these circumstances that he meets young Catherine (Leila George), herself alone having a good time on the hotel beach in the company of her son (Nicolas is then 5 years old).
A few games of looks and eroticism later, Disclaimer tells us through the voice-over of a “fake Catherine” (Indira Varma as the narrator of the book) how the meeting between Jonathan and the latter generated a short passionate story where sexual initiation was synonymous with love for the first, and recreation for the second.
But following an argument (Catherine stating that she does not want the young teenager to follow her to London and ruin her marriage to Robert), Nicolas is dragged away by the tide following a moment of distraction from his mother. Disclaimer shows us halfway through how Jonathan saved the child, while losing his life..all under the gaze of a vindictive Catherine not alerting anyone about the drowning of the handsome heroic ephebe.
A story which therefore shows Catherine as a manipulator capable of preferring death rather than lifting the veil on her adulteryand therefore justifying the emotional heartbreak of Stephen and his wife Nancy (going to the scene of the death to retrace this sordid event). We know the rest: Catherine refused Nancy the opportunity to meet Nicolas (a life for a life), died of cancer, but wrote the manuscript during her long sessions in the late Jonathan's room.
Reverse of destiny
Undoubtedly a reasonable reason to push Stephen to foment a reverse karma, going so far as to send the novel to all of Catherine's personal and professional entourage (who had become an eminent journalist-documentarian). In doing so, each individual will turn against her (including the spectator!)while Robert faces his own insecurities (never going to ask his wife for explanations) and Nicolas plunges back into his drug addiction tendencies.
Jonathan's fake Instagram profile created by Stephen will only be the final straw, pushing Nicolas to overdose and plunge him into a coma. And after various moments of high dramatic tension where an absolutely stunning Kevin Kline will try to kill his target, Disclaimer makes a final turn in episode 7 confronting our two protagonists so that Catherine can finally express herself.
In an era of easy trials and public lynching, it seems obvious that the female point of view is sought, and rightly so: it seemed as big as a house that the story of the novel could not be 100% truthful, given that it was not written by Jonathan, but by his grieving mother. A reconstruction of a puzzle with artificial pieces, in short, like coping with grief that we cannot accept.
Because that's the truth: Jonathan's girlfriend left him during his trip, and the latter violently raped Catherine in her hotel room (with young Nicolas sleeping in the next room). A 3-hour ordeal whose evidence (the famous erotic photographs) are only biased evidence simply staged in order to survive.
In the kingdom of narrators, everyone is king
The rest of the story is the same concerning the drowning, but the entire meaning and psychological journey of Catherine (and therefore of the story given that this time Cate Blanchett is the narrator) is transformed. A meta-context which could seem binary at first glance (the story that we will be told is false, so we then access the truth to reverse the balance of power), but in addition to a constantly quadruple narration, (point of view of story, of Catherine, Stephen and Jonathan) it is indeed one of the last sequences of Disclaimer which comes back to fold the cards.
After these revelations, Stephen gives up believing in a fantasy, and Catherine leaves Robert (effectively seeming relieved that his wife could only have been raped, like the viewer) to give herself another chance with Nicolas. However, as Stephen burns the last photos, we realize that the very young Nicolas in 2001 was in the room during the famous “crime”.
Mistake on Catherine’s part? Omission? Lie ? Far from the spinning topInception, this end without big hooves finishes sitting Disclaimer as a work witnessing the power of point of view as a catalyst for a truth that we wish to achieve. Who to believe when there are several truths, several narrators, several affects and several stories? It's simply up to the viewer to choose!
Disclaimer is fully available on Apple TV+
