Disclaimer

It is a story told with such dramatic force it might leave you bowled over. It might leave you cold and wondering. It might leave you angry. But it will leave you thinking about it. Maybe for a long time.

The TV event series of the new season exposes the lies a celebrated documentarian (a knockout Cate Blanchett) tells her husband (Sacha Baron Cohen) and herself about a novelist (Kevin Kline, Emmy worthy) who writes about a shocking sex scandal from her youth that only pretends to be fiction.

Disclaimer is a series that, like life, is unpredictable, breathtaking, and, at times, deeply troubling. Most of all, it's not what it seems.

The level of the talent involved, Cuarón especially, is remarkable. But it feels way too similar to other limited series and movies — specifically the ones based on thrillers from the Gillian Flynn section of the bookstore. Complaining about this feels a bit like complaining about water being wet.

It almost works. But a sudden rush of revelations in the last two episodes upends much of what came before and resolves the story far too neatly. Having created a series that invested so much in exploring contradictions, Cuarón’s reliance on simple certainties is ultimately both disappointing and dissatisfying.

Slow, turgid, self-important but beautifully shot episodes are interspersed with the occasional scene – usually courtesy of an astonishing Manville – that pops up amid the stilted, mannered rubbish on screen and suddenly bursts your heart with grief, then puts it in a blender and purees it.

The show simply seems unbelievable, both in terms of its characters’ behavior and, tragically, the real biases it works to highlight. Cuarón crafts some indelible images in the process, but can’t shape “Disclaimer” into a functional vessel for its own story.

An incredibly well put together show from director Alfonso Cuaron. While slow in the beginning, the show explores incredibly deep and serious themes in an engaging and unique way. Cinematography and soundtrack are vibrant and beautiful, and acting is incredibly well done. Lots of praise to go around for the whole team, especially Cate Blanchett for her incredible role.

Cate Blanchett plays a journalist who suddenly finds her marriage and career in jeopardy, when a stranger (Kevin Kline) publishes a novel that parallels a scandalous event in her life. Alfonso Cuarón has written and directed this series, so there's an undeniable gravitas in the presentation with some unique perspectives. It helps to understand that the voiceover is in 3 voices: First person for Kline's character, second person for Blanchett's and third person for everyone else. The performances are dark, as are many of their situations. There are some undeniably powerful moments and the seduction scenes are especially juicy. While there's continual intense foreboding and an art film quality to the production, the series is also slow, self-important and not as shocking or emotionally powerful as it promises.

A strange series indeed. The acting is good, and the cinematography is beautiful, but the plot and its execution are frequently messy. And the plot twist is beyond ludicrous. I get that this was a story about the meaning of truth and how narrative can be manipulative in a bad way, but I think this last thing is what the series transforms into in the end.

Disappointing, even by the low bar it sets itself. This ends up a thoroughly forgettable, and embarrassingly overwrought, attempt to relativize adulterous behaviour in an effort to look smart. Some might balk at the pedestrian politics, but no one should be surprised the production plays to the ideological agenda du jour that is toxifiying masculinity.

A story about the power of self-publishing. But seriously: I had watched "Fleischman is in trouble" before, which is so similar in structure and narrative purpose, that it was apparent this is going to be another twisty revenge story. There is less misdirect here, I like unreliable narrators, and the actors are extraordinary, so I figured I'll appreciate this, but the twist in the end is so over the top, it retrospectively ruined the previous episodes. When a content warning would spoil your twist ending, you might not have found a good way to tell the story...