Disclaimer: Binge, Fringe, or Singe?
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Warning: The following review is of a series that is part of TIFF 2024 and may contain spoilers for Disclaimer. Reader discretion is advised.
Binge, Fringe, or Singe? is our television series that will cover the latest seasons, miniseries, and more. Binge is our recommendation to marathon the reviewed season. Fringe means it won’t be everyone’s favourite show, but is worth a try (maybe there are issues with it). Singe means to avoid the reviewed series at all costs.
“I still don’t know how to do television,” acclaimed director Alfonso Cuarón stated at an industry event at the 2024 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. He then carried on by stating that he was scared that Apple would find out when it was too late, well into the production of the miniseries Disclaimer. What Cuarón was insinuating is that Disclaimer is not so much a television series as much as it is a very long film that has been broken up into parts, and he used very specific examples like Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz and Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander to make his point. Despite being shown on a television service and in episodes, Disclaimer is technically an over-five-hour, cinematic affair that shouldn’t be mistaken as a piece of short form TV content. After catching up with the series at TIFF, I see exactly what he means, particularly because of how meticulous the entire project is, and how reliant each part is on what has already happened before and what is to come later. If you have the opportunity to watch the entire project in one sitting, I cannot think of a better way to go about Disclaimer: an adaptation of the story of the same name by Renée Knight.
Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett) is a renown journalist known for her ability to get to the truth of situations. However, it turns out that much of her own life is a lie. What appears to be a typical family dynamic, with husband Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen) and her socially awkward and stubborn son, Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee), is about to change drastically over the course of the series. It’s difficult to discuss much else about Disclaimer without spoiling too much, and this is honestly an example where a series demands to be watched with as little information as possible. All I will say is that there are three storylines that happen congruently. You have the one I just described sitting at the heart of Disclaimer, and it’s Catherine’s perspective. You then have a flashback, told with retro cinematography and even silent-era-esque transitions (these shrinking and growing transitions take me back to what it feels like to watch a Buster Keaton film). Then there’s another more contemporary timeline, starring teacher Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline) who is forced into retirement, and I’ll just leave it at that.
The series is called Disclaimer because of the warnings fictional works often display before or after the main program takes place. They typically state that any persons or events that resemble real counterparts are coincidental and unintended. However, Disclaimer makes a point of stating the opposite: that resemblances are guaranteed and are on purpose. That’s a major theme in the series, especially since you are going off of as little information as possible when the series first begins. In fact, you will likely mistaken some characters as others, particularly when you skip back to the flashback storyline. You will slowly start to get more vital information and think you have the bigger picture, but you’d still be wrong. It takes about three parts for a good portion of the story to be revealed to you, and even then you’re not sitting on all of the facts just yet. Much of Disclaimer is a guessing game, and that is half the fun. How many times can Cuarón throw you in for a loop? Quite a few, it seems.
When he isn’t conjuring up a portfolio of stunning shots with frequent collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki (nicknamed “Chivo”, because he simply is the GOAT of cinematography), Cuarón is bringing these actors to the tops of their talents. Blanchett, we can all expect a brilliant performance from now. It’s nice to see Kline turn in stellar acting after so many years of lacklustre projects and the lack of room to showcase what he’s capable of. The majority of the cast, including Lesley Manville, Leila George, and Hoyeon, are also fascinating to watch whenever they’re on screen. My favourite performance of the series has to go to Cohen, who is invited to reel in his typically outlandish style, and we get a hyper real job from him (one that will have you begging for Cohen to partake in more serious dramas like this; as funny as he is, he is a damn fine actor when in the right projects).
These actors portray their own perspectives, particularly those of characters Catherine and Stephen (as well as the character who is depicted in the flashback storyline, which I will decline to go further into). We get first person encapsulations of their thoughts, as well as the third person responses from the characters around them. Finally, Cuarón discussed how he wanted to capture the second person perspective (us, the viewer) during Disclaimer, and that comes in the form of some post modern distancing: narration from our key players that push us away, make us feel like we are reading a novel and aware of both the words on the page and the images we’ve conjured up in our heads. Cuarón does a great job of never fully exiling us from Disclaimer, and other, less careful directors could have easily made us disinterested in the final project. The three perspectives feuding together create for a paranoid-yet-lush environment: as if we are feeling tense within a world that doesn’t value us as the main character in the way that our mind does. None of this feels important in the grand scheme of things considering how the world keeps on going without us (no matter how tragic or juvenile these circumstances are), but these events are life changing for us personally.
As Disclaimer unfurls, you’ll know the power of words. Despite being a highly visual filmmaker (and that doesn’t change here), Cuarón puts forth the notion that he is in complete control of how he tells a story with Disclaimer: perhaps his most narratively complicated endeavour to date. Grief, regret, deception, and revenge all come to a head in this twisting, cascading series of viewpoints. You will feel like you are mastering the point of the story before you are caught by another tidal wave that will prove you wrong. Even if you want to digest Disclaimer one part at a time, you may find yourself feeling pressed to watch the entire series at once because of its engrossing nature. You’ll demand to know more, whether it’s parts of the story or where everything will go now that you have all of the missing information. Maybe it has been a weaker year for television, or maybe Alfonso Cuarón’s Disclaimer is just that damn good; consider this miniseries a major highlight of the small screen for 2024.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.