So I feel like I am going to use this site more to get out some of my frustrations at things that I watch. Hopefully, I’ll have positive watches that I feel this passionate about in the future. But there will be spoilers.
Disclaimer starts out pretty interesting – intriguing. But it isn’t long before the entire story is so obviously biased. It has several people narrating throughout but by the third episode – things are laid out clearly. An older man named Stephen (Kevin Kline in makeup) has lost his son and his wife and has become a bit delirious…. I believe he puts his wife’s cardigan on in the first episode and never takes it off. He and his wife lost their son, Jonathan, to a drowning accident in Italy where Jonathan went out to save a child from drowning successfully and died in the process. First of all, the story sets up really well. I cared for Jonathan and even Catherine and of course, Nick. So after Stephen loses his teaching job and finds a manuscript written by his late wife along with naked photos of Catherine, decides to destroy her life – specifically her son – by publishing the novel his wife had written which is so obviously riddled with her own thoughts and based on nothing but photos she found from that trip. Stephen mails a copy to Catherine herself and then continues on a path to destroy her life. What really fucking bothers me and bothered me immediately was that not one person was asking HOW anyone would know the information inside the book. Catherine’s husband, Robert, who is the absolute worst character in this story, is spun as a victim. Nicholas is a victim – everyone is a victim of her infidelity…. of course before the very last episode brings light to what we all know — this has all been a fantasy dreamt up by a mean woman who lost her son and looked wherever she could for validation for his death. Including the blame she places on Catherine. This has two episodes in front that build intrigue well enough – then many episodes of complete disregard for the intelligence of its audience, completed with one and a half episodes of what most of us were waiting for — the REAL FUCKING STORY. God shit like this makes me so angry. It’s not a regular movie – I wasted 7 hours watching this. My worst fear was that she was somehow going to be relieved at her husband’s “forgiveness” but thank god that isn’t how it happened.. which is the only reason I give it a 4/10. 3 1/2 good episodes so I think I’m being generous.
This is my letterboxd review:
This is a limited series I committed myself to after the first episode had so much promise. The problem with this is that – and maybe this is the point- but everyone just ignored the fact that this was not written by either person it is told in detail about. I suppose people can forgive the old man in a weird way but I just kept thinking – who is going to actually question the credibility here. If she has built her life on her credibility then why do people believe an old man who can barely speak and wears his dead wife’s cardigan around without any notice? It starts big and then it gets annoyingly hard to watch. The end is good- but I had to sit and watch hours of torture when it’s so fucking clear the story has been altered. And even if it hadn’t – who the hell would know besides her. And she’s just completely pushed aside by her coworkers and worst- her fucking husband. She was nice explaining why she should cut his dick off but won’t by the end. What an asshole. And the entire time I was thinking even if she had done this horrible thing called cheating (that would be nothing if it were him), this old man is not creating justice. Then the truth comes out and I wish all the men were brutally killed (not her son – like my own he is innocent) :)) and the wife was clearly self absorbed in the bits we see before Jonathan dies. It’s not worth your time. I was more annoyed than satisfied and only made it to the end bc I had already dedicated so much of my time.
WORDS OF EXPRESSION 