(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
If a picture speaks a thousand words, then the concluding episode of Disclaimer makes it clear that those words might not reflect reality—or at least not all of it.
Everything is a contradiction in Alfonso Cuarón’s seven-part pulpy psychological thriller, which finally reveals in its season finale how deep the discrepancies are in Nancy Bridgestock’s (Lesley Manville) novel, The Perfect Stranger. What her husband Stephen (Kevin Kline) thought was an ode to their son Jonathan’s (Louis Partridge) surprising selfless sacrifice is a twisted work of fan fiction that paints their rapist child as an innocent who died saving a so-called callous woman’s young son.
Two things can be true at once: A person can be a hero and a villain. And in a show with this many perspectives and narrators it can be hard to know what to believe. Perhaps you feel duped, but the deception is part of the plan because even Catherine’s husband, Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen), didn’t take a beat to consider there might be more to the photos of Jonathan and Catherine together than smut.
Throughout the Apple TV+ limited series, one common reaction from everyone who has read The Perfect Stranger is that the character based on Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett) deserved to die at the end of the book. Thankfully, life doesn’t imitate art in the finale.
Instead, Catherine finally gets to tell her story, sitting opposite her tormentor, Stephen. Last week’s penultimate episode laid all the groundwork to separate the fact from fiction in Nancy’s manuscript, and the final chapter picks up the conversation, engaging in an electrifying two-hander between the two Oscar winners that is simmering with resentment and loathing from each party at the table.
Details about the day on the beach are pretty spot on: Catherine admits she watched Jonathan struggling amid the choppy waves and did nothing. However, she wasn’t trying to put a pin in an illicit holiday affair but stop the onslaught of questions and having to prove herself innocent after a traumatic, violent rape.
It is a last-act twist that pulls the rug out, or rather, asks the audience to reconsider everything that has come before it, and it is far from the first to use this “domestic noir” template.
You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the front cover of my copy of Renee Knight’s novel the series is based on boasts that it is “an addictive novel with shades of Gone Girl.” Shades is a perfect descriptor because this novel and the Cuarón adaptation lack the overall punch of Gillian Flynn’s genre-defining book or David Fincher’s fun-as-hell 2010 movie. While it cannot eclipse Gone Girl, Cuarón’s Disclaimer is more successful than the turgid The Girl on the Train, which follows this narrative framing.
The late switcheroo is not meant to be a gotcha—though you might feel differently—as clues are sprinkled throughout. The iris shot device depicting how Nancy has taped the pieces together to form The Perfect Stranger doesn’t entirely add up to how Stephen remembers his son. References to Nancy’s overly close and protective bond with her son are red flags hinting at an unhealthy “boy mom” dynamic. We never find out the exact reason why Jonathan’s girlfriend, Sasha, departed early from the European vacation, but it is bad enough that Sasha’s mother won’t let Nancy talk to her daughter even after Jonathan has died.
Perhaps the big tell in Nancy’s version of her baby boys’ seduction over drinks was all the talk of Kylie Minogue that cranked up the cringe. While the pop star was undoubtedly a crush of many Brit teenagers in the early ’00s because Kylie had been around for two decades at this point (thanks to her days on the Aussie soap Neighbours), it reads as a reference that a woman of Nancy’s age would make—plus the poster still hangs on Jonathan’s teen bedroom. Not to mention how rom-com stammering Jonathan is during this conversation.
The reality is far more horrifying.
Having seen the “sexy” version, Cuarón ensures we now witness everything from young Catherine’s (Leila George) perspective and (thankfully) keeps the nudity to a minimum by using quick cuts and focusing on her face. Considering how graphic the earlier episodes are—particularly for Apple TV+—the truth is a far cry from the porn-y fairytale of the novel that has Catherine exhibiting all the power.
Of course, Blanchett and Kline are the standouts in the finale. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t highlight that Partridge and George are excellent at navigating the two extremes of the Italian vacation flashback. Partridge drops any indication of boyish bumbling charm, and George captures the minefield of surviving this ordeal—and protecting her young son.
It is a confronting sequence that shows Jonathan’s ejaculation stain getting larger on his shorts before he repeatedly rapes Catherine. The painting on the ceiling is chaste (as opposed to the nude bodies in Nancy’s version), and Catherine focuses on this image while being attacked.
In the present, while Kline pulses with loathing across the table, Blanchett’s physical reactions during this conversation reflect how two decades of burying this trauma make it hard even now to tell her story. She stammers, shakes (with anger and fear), and wraps her coat around her like a protective shield. Disbelief that it happened echoes in Catherine’s words, but the ripple effect in how she approached motherhood afterward is evident in her strained relationship with Nicholas (Kodi Smit McPhee).
Jonathan’s photographs hide the horror, but one final bombshell after the dust has settled shows Nicholas in the reflection of the hotel room mirror. As an adult, Nicholas doesn’t have a conscious memory of this violence, but this fraction of a photo proves he witnessed his mother’s attack. A photo can perpetuate a lie and reveal a new piece of evidence.
As Catherine expected, Stephen does not believe her and asks questions about proof. Every instinct Catherine had about being blamed has come true—particularly how her husband Robert responded. Robert took the photographs at face value and didn’t even stop to consider an alternative reality. It isn’t that he didn’t believe his wife; he didn’t even give her a chance to explain.
Cuarón has played with perspective throughout, but there is nothing ambiguous about Robert’s lack of trust.
