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