The thing was promising. Six years and a handful of Oscars later, Alfonso Cuarón returned to directing. Cate Blanchett as protagonist and producer leading a quite attractive cast (veterans like Kevin Kline or Lesley Manville, emerging stars like Kodi Smit-McPhee or Leila George, comedian Sacha Baron Cohen); a script that adapted a domestic noir, ‘Observada’ (Salamandra, 2015), which had had quite an impact; an artistic team with names like the great Emmanuel Lubezki (three Oscars as director of photography) or the musician Finneas O’Connell… What could go wrong?
‘Disclaimer’ (AppleTV) starts very well. In the first two episodes, all the virtues that could be expected from reading the previous paragraph are reflected: a highly expressive photographic treatment, providing many dramatic keys in each narrative line through light; a soundtrack, tense and contained, that accompanies the images very well; a story told from various points of view, full of mystery, hidden secrets and family traumas, which promises to be very interesting; a very elegant staging, with refined sequence shots that are the hallmark of the house; and a wonderful Cate Blanchett, maintaining a perfect balance between the enigmatic and melodramatic of her character.
However, from the third episode onwards, worrying signs begin to appear that this is not going to be what it seems (and I’m not referring to the plot, unfortunately). The first is that it quickly becomes evident what the script trick is. It’s too obvious, any viewer who has seen more than two films in their life will think. I don’t think the series bets everything on that “revelation”, I don’t think it all boils down to that. Well yes. Seven episodes later they tell you what everyone has already sensed – through a peculiar photographic texture, the use of the iris shot fade, the shots of the characters reading the book – after watching the first two chapters.
Second worrying sign. The series is narrated through a rather redundant and intrusive voice-over, which changes point of view (first, second or third person) depending on the character. This is at first disconcerting, but also intriguing. There must be some dramatic intention behind it, thinks the viewer who is watching the series with a minimum (very minimum) of attention. Well neither. It’s like that. It’s like having a lady telling you in your ear what we are already seeing. Thank you, no need, very kind, you can go.
And speaking of actors… Third sign. Cate Blanchett is still wonderful (if it weren’t for her, ‘Disclaimer’ would be an absolute flop). But the others… As the chapters progress, Kevin Kline becomes more and more histrionic, Sacha Baron Cohen less credible and Kodi Smit-McPhee more affected. To finish off, fourth and definitive sign: between chapters two and seven there is more filling than in a 19th century mattress. It is the evil of current American series: telling in six hours what is not even enough for two. They could now look at the British…
