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    For ‘Disclaimer,’ Alfonso Cuarón Updates His Terms and Conditions

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    Cate Blanchett stars in the acclaimed director’s new TV series, a thriller about a woman whose life is upended by a mysterious novel.About a decade ago, the writer-director Alfonso Cuarón was sent an advance copy of Renée Knight’s book “Disclaimer,” a thriller about a woman whose life is upended when she receives a novel by an unknown author that seems to lay bare her secrets. That novel begins with a disclaimer: “Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not a coincidence.”As Cuarón (“Children of Men,” “Y Tu Mamá También”) read, he could picture each scene in his head. This book, he thought, should be a film. There was just one problem.“I didn’t see how the film that I wanted to do could fit into an hour and 45 minutes,” he said.So Cuarón immersed himself in other projects, like “Roma” (2018), which won him a second Oscar for directing. But a few years later, he began to think about “Disclaimer” again, in the context of more expansive films like Ingmar Bergman’s “Fanny and Alexander” or Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in America,” works that clocked in at four or five hours.The market for marathon films is small. But Cuarón knew of an alternative: television. And he was mindful that other auteurs, like David Lynch with “Twin Peaks” and Lars Von Trier with “The Kingdom,” had explored that medium before him.Which is how, after a three-decade film career and five Oscars, Cuarón came to make “Disclaimer,” a seven-episode limited series starring Cate Blanchett, Sacha Baron Cohen and Kevin Kline. The first two episodes premiere on Apple TV+ on Friday, with the rest rolling out weekly afterward.In “Disclaimer,” Blanchett plays an acclaimed journalist and documentarian, and Sacha Baron Cohen plays her husband.Apple TV+We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Good House’ Review: Expending Emotional Real Estate

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      Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline star in a film that hides a story about alcoholism inside a soft focus romance.As a real estate agent and as the protagonist of the drama “The Good House,” Hildy Good (Sigourney Weaver) is a confident hostess. The film begins with Hildy describing her life in a small seaside town in Massachusetts, first in voice-over and then in a direct address to the camera.In the spirit of blasé town gossip, Hildy freely offers her back story. Her husband left her to begin seeing men, and her protégé began stealing her clients. However, the secret that threatens Hildy’s happiness is one that she keeps from herself. She’s an alcoholic, and despite previous stints in rehab, she has not been able to give up drinking.The film follows Hildy as she tries to rebuild her life and her business through working with her neighbors as clients. She even begins dating her first love, Frank (Kevin Kline). But the omnipresence of alcohol threatens Hildy’s stability. She can’t resist the bottle, and can’t remember what she’s done when she has one in her hands.The directors Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky use the film’s style as a sleight of hand. At first glance, the movie appears to be a soft focus romance. Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline are beloved performers, still sharp after decades of stardom. The views over the New England harbor charm, and the score cheerily plink-plunks along with assists from the classic rock needle drops. The stylistic placidity draws attention to the disturbance of Hildy’s alcoholism, the way her drinking interrupts even the film’s genre. But the trouble with this cinematic Trojan horse is that the superficial blandness dominates the frame. It’s hard to feel the story’s stakes when the images are always indicating no danger ahead.The Good HouseRated R for language, brief nudity and sexual content. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Starling’ Review: For the Birds

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      Melissa McCarthy stars in this film on Netflix that takes shortcuts, at nearly every turn, in portraying the messiness of acceptance.A soppy, facile look at grief, “The Starling” finds its protagonist coping with the death of her infant daughter — and a marriage that has faltered in its aftermath — with the aid of a flapping metaphor.Lilly (Melissa McCarthy) is a supermarket employee who has channeled her anguish over losing a child into compulsive snack-food stacking. Lilly’s husband, Jack (Chris O’Dowd), has been living in a psychiatric institution. And a starling has taken up residence by Lilly’s garden. It keeps swooping down and striking her in the head.Starlings, explains a doctor named Larry Fine (Kevin Kline) — yes, like the Three Stooges, Lilly notes — are not easily scared away. Eventually, Lilly will learn that the bird is out of her control. She simply has to live with it.To be fair, “The Starling,” directed in bland, undistinguished terms by Theodore Melfi (“Hidden Figures”), never suggests that mourning is as easy or rapid a process as coexisting with a bothersome yard guest. But it does, at nearly every turn, take shortcuts in portraying the messiness of acceptance. Larry is both a veterinarian and a former psychiatrist, a combination that allows Lilly to economize on office visits and the screenwriter, Matt Harris, to dispense unrelated bromides from one character. (Larry also commits what seems like an ethical violation by visiting Jack without Lilly’s knowledge.)Blatant product placement, unconvincing bird effects and awful soundtrack selections all undermine a potentially wrenching, difficult premise with utter bogusness.The StarlingRated PG-13. Grief and animal cruelty. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More