“Disclaimer*” is the newest edition of book-to-show adaptations. It’s a seven-part psychological thriller and has a star-studded cast that first got its recognition when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival. The show’s creator, Alfonso Cuarón is an academy award winner, his most notable work being “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” and the more recent film “Roma.” The show follows three perspectives, one being Cate Blanchett’s character who, years ago, cheated on her husband with a much younger guy. The first two episodes were released on Apple TV on Oct. 11, and the rest will come out on a week-by-week basis.
In starting the show, I could already tell it was going to be much different than anything I’d seen before. I was initially intrigued to see Louis Partridge’s performance, and after watching the trailer, I was even more hooked. That being said, it’s a show put on by people who are extremely talented and have been praised and awarded for that talent. That doesn’t make for a bad show obviously but makes for a different show than what you might go into expecting.
We follow three perspectives: Catherine, who’s a successful journalist and documentarian, Mr. Brigstocke, who’s the father of Jonathan and Jonathan himself. We meet Jonathan in the past while he was in Italy with a friend. When his friend must leave, he ends up wandering Italy alone, and that’s when he meets Catherine; but we know from the present timeline that they spend intimate time together.
In the present, Mr. Brigstocke finds a manuscript his late wife wrote detailing Jonathan and Catherine’s time together. He decides to publish it and specifically send copies to Catherine and then her son and husband. We watch Catherine on the edge of her seat for two episodes because she thought this situation was done and over with years ago. Her husband doesn’t know about this secret and now it’s eating her alive because Jonathan is dead, and she doesn’t know who’s out to get her.
The first two episodes just scratch the surface of what the rest of the show is going to dive into. There’s discussion around age-gap relationships, which is especially interesting in this scenario because the genders are reversed compared to what is usually portrayed in the media.
There’s also a lot of foreshadowing when it comes to consequences and whose decision that is. It’s always interesting to see what direction stories go, and in this case, because the book the show is based on was written in 2015, I like seeing what kind of changes may have been made to bridge the 9-year gap between the two forms of media.
As much as the storyline is intriguing, the show was pissing me off. First, when we get Catherine or Mr. Brigstocke’s perspectives in the present, there’s narration over the scenes. And the narration is in the third person. I wanted to quit watching. Then when we see Jonathan’s scenes there are fade-ins and outs, but they’re tunneled like in “Looney Tunes.”
Even though this show doesn’t fully feel like my cup of tea, I will be tuning in every week because I need answers and feel very invested in this show now.
2.75/5 Stars