Disclaimer review: Alfonso Cuarón delivers deliciously twisted, artfully trashy psychological thriller for Apple

The multiple Oscar-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón sets you up nicely in the first episode of his new Apple thriller series, Disclaimer, by having his protagonist announce the show’s central thesis in big, bold letters. “Beware of narrative and form,” says the decorated documentarian Catherine Ravenscroft, played by Cate Blanchett, before adding something of a warning. “Their power can bring us closer to the truth. But they can also be a weapon with a great power to manipulate.” Across seven episodes, Cuarón plays around with both narrative and form, spinning a highly engaging yarn whose primary focus, apparently, is to expose our biases. And although Cuarón cheats, sometimes shamelessly, he gets away with nearly everything on sheer skill alone.

Disclaimer unfolds across multiple timelines, which it flips between like an impatient teenager. It’s tedious only until it isn’t; until Cuarón has successfully ensnared you in his delicate yet deafeningly on-the-nose plot. It involves Catherine getting the shock of her life one day, after skimming through a thin novel that she’d received in the mail. It doesn’t take her too long to discover that the novel, titled The Perfect Stranger and written by an unknown author, is about her. Catherine’s suspicions are confirmed by the disclaimer on page one: “Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not a coincidence.” Someone is messing with her, and she doesn’t appreciate it.

This someone is a grieving old man named Stephen Brigstocke. Played by a deliciously over-the-top Kevin Kline, Stephen is both doddering and dastardly. He’d practically given up on life after the death of his wife nearly a decade ago, which had been preceded by the tragic passing of their teenage son, Jonathan (Louis Partridge). Sifting through his wife’s stuff, Stephen discovered a manuscript that she’d written, detailing — in thriller fiction form — how a summer fling in Italy led to Jonathan’s accidental death by the sea. She’d based the novel on the dozens of photographs that Jonathan had taken on the trip, including more than a few of the slightly older woman he’d hooked up with. Stephen’s wife eventually learned that this woman was none other than Catherine, who’s been guarding this secret ever since — both her wealthy husband, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, and their good-for-nothing son, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, have no idea what happened in Italy that summer.

But as a part of his epic revenge plot to get back at Catherine, Stephen sent them both copies of the book as well. Catherine’s husband, Robert, finds out about the fling soon enough. He’s outraged. But the show’s suspense hinges on their son, Nicholas, learning the truth about his mother. To call their relationship strained would be an understatement; they can barely speak to each other, and Catherine readily admits that she has failed miserably as a parent. It is vitally important to her that Nicholas doesn’t find out about what happened in Italy — he was there, Robert wasn’t. Disclaimer is designed to make you despise Catherine; in addition to her apparent infidelity, she also comes across as rather entitled and proud, bragging about her professional achievements and undermining her underlings. For all we know, she could be a related to the other cancellable ice-queen that Blanchett played recently: Lydia Tar.

Which is to say, Catherine isn’t exactly the easiest person to root for. But watching her squirm can have a complex effect on the viewer. A part of you wants her to get her just desserts, but nobody would want her to be tortured in the way that she is by Stephen. Artfully, arrestingly, Disclaimer allows you to stew in the conflict of your emotions for nearly seven hours, as it reveals new details about what actually happened between Catherine and Jonathan in Italy. More than anything else, Disclaimer allows you to construct your own elaborate narratives, although it manipulates you towards drawing exactly one conclusion, and that, too, with a heavy hand. It’s borderline trashy, but like Big Little Lies, highly accomplished.

Disclaimer wears a veneer of prestige. Filmed by the the legendary cinematographers Emmanuel Lubezki and Bruno Delbonnel — they’ve been credited together, not separately — each of its seven chapters is dazzling to look at. Longtime fans of the DPs might even want to entertain themselves by guessing who shot which parts. The Italy flashbacks have the freewheeling energy of the three-time Oscar-winning Lubezki’s work, while nearly everything else bears the immaculately composed perfection of the six-time nominee Delbonnel’s frames. The music — lush, sweeping, sometimes melodramatic — has been composed by Finneas O’Connell, who has won two Academy Awards himself, along with his more celebrated sister, Billie Eilish.

Disclaimer builds towards a stirring climax, which not only ties all the narrative threads together in a tense face-off between Catherine and Stephen, but also delivers more conventional thrills, such as a chase through the streets of London, and a life-and-death race against time. It’s an immaculately constructed show, joyously performed by an impressive cast, and boasting a well-earned sense of superiority. The entire thing might come across as an unreasonably expensive excuse for Cuarón to wag his finger at us all, but think of it as being yelled at by Wagner Moura, or having the smoke of Tony Leung’s cigarette blown in your face. The humiliations we suffer for the sake of cinema.