The Ending of ‘Disclaimer’ Is a Warning to a Truth-Starved World

Disclaimer was designed to keep viewers spinning until they aren’t sure what to believe, or who is right or wrong. The series, from Oscar-winning filmmaker Alfonoso Cuarón, begins with audiences feeling unmitigated scorn for Cate Blanchett’s character, who finds humiliating secrets from her past revealed in a mysterious self-published novel. As the show progresses, Cuarón gradually makes viewers begin to question their assumptions about her—and the veracity of this supposedly truth-telling book. By the time the revenge plot by Kevin Kline’s embittered old man reaches its crushing conclusion, Disclaimer’s audience veers back in the other direction.

Fair warning, spoilers ahead: Blanchett was the wronged party (brutally so), and not the perpetrator. No one listened. Half-truths and assumptions led the characters to lash out at each other. Judgment and recrimination overpowered fairness. But now that the finale has aired, Cuarón points out that the viewers themselves were never overtly misled—at least not by him.

For anyone who feels disoriented or distraught by a world that makes no sense, Disclaimer now serves as a moral compass. When suspicions run high, anger clouds every view, and the impulse is a rush to judgment, Cuarón says it’s important to remain clear-eyed, careful, and true. Here, he explains the ending of Disclaimer, and how self-righteousness often only adds more misdeeds to an avalanche of wrongs.

Vanity Fair: What was your philosophy about guiding the audience? How did you want their beliefs to evolve from the beginning to the middle and finally the end of Disclaimer?

Alfonso Cuarón: Well, the factor underneath it all was something that Cate and I worked on very closely and very carefully: not to mislead audiences. If you watch the whole thing for a second time, you realize that everything is out in the open.

So, many of the terrible things we believe at first aren’t confirmed in the story. There’s accusation, and insinuation, and we’re making leaps…

We saw that as an opportunity to thematically explore the impact of how we perceive our narratives and how we also employ narratives. The story is told through several narratives with voiceover, and also there is the narrative of the novel. And all of those are in complete conflict. Then there’s a narrative that is even more important—that is the narrative of the audience with his or her own judgments and assumptions.

Kevin Kline’s character, Stephen Brigstocke, launched his revenge plot against Cate’s character because he blamed her for the death of his son. It turns out that the nude pictures he found of her were not signs of a romantic relationship, as his late wife assumed, but were instead evidence of a horrific crime the young man committed against Cate.

It’s the only moment of certainty that he probably had in his life, and he caused so much pain.

It ends with Kline burning his poison-pen novel about her, all of his son’s belongings, and even his wife’s sweater and his wedding ring. What did you feel you were saying about the nature of revenge and those consumed by it?

I don’t think that there is greater hell. I believe that hell is that moment right before you die in which maybe you’ve been celebrated, maybe you have gotten away with everything. Just in that moment before the light goes off, the thought of: I was wrong. I screwed up. That must be hell. Pretty much that is what happens with Stephen. The narrative of his family was nothing but a lie.

To believe something with such certainty, and be wrong…

He knows that ahead is only loneliness. His only companion is going to be the consciousness of that, and that now it is too late to revert.

It seems as if he chose to be misled about who he had aligned with in his life.

It’s all he knew. He identified love with a certain kind of abuse from Nancy [his wife, played by Lesley Manville], being dismissed completely by his son [played by Louis Partridge]. He invents this narrative of this perfect family, of this amazing talent that was his wife, this amazing boy that was the golden child, Jonathan.

Cate’s character, Catherine, does the same with her husband (Sacha Baron Cohen) and son (Kodi Smit-Mcphee), doesn’t she?

The family of Stephen is like a mirror to the family of Catherine because all of them live a narrative that is a fantasy. It’s so far away from the truth, and this crisis completely unpeels the layers to find a more honest truth for all of them. But I have to say, it’s not unlike our own relationships with our families. We go to family dinners and we share stories about our families in the past, and we are editing quite a lot.

We lie to ourselves to make painful truths bearable?

It’s the same narratives we tell about ourselves and our past. We tend to romanticize all of that. If we want to be honest, we’re dismissing a lot of stuff.

That sometimes happens on an even bigger scale, doesn’t it?

The narratives of nations. They invent this whole story that creates a common identity, but at the expense of dismissing very damaging things that happen underneath that narrative. Those things are present. They don’t disappear. They’re still there hidden behind the narrative, but they’re still there. They are triggering certain behaviors, certain attitudes in people, in families, in countries.

You said your goal was to never deliberately mislead the audience and that all of the clues are there as you progress through the show—the audience just overlooks them. Can you point to some examples?

It is clear throughout the whole show that you see a woman hiding her secret. And if you see it again, it’s a woman trying to articulate what happened in her past, but it’s very difficult. She needs time. And she needs the help of either a professional or of a person that she has a deep connection of affection to—that should have been her husband. Clearly the only person that she reveals everything to is her mother, who is senile.

And dying.

Cate’s character is alone and she’s trying to talk. She’s trying to explain. And all the time everybody is shutting her up.

There’s a flashback scene early on when Cate meets Mrs. Brigstocke, who reveals she is dying from cancer. Cate doesn’t tell her the truth about what happened with her son, but is that an example of a scene that plays differently when you realize what actually happened?

Oh, completely. Because [at first] you see a woman that is trying to hide the truth and avoiding answers. And [afterward] she’s in many ways trying to protect that woman from knowing the truth. She arrives ready to try to tell this woman what happened. But as she said later on, what was the point of telling a mother that the son that just died was a rapist? What would she gain by that? That woman is dying. So she feels she has to just take the punches and be accused. She believes that [the truth] would be a wrong thing to do to this woman.

So it’s less of a lie and more…

She’s merciful.

The final shot of the show is Cate reconnecting with her son. In contrast to the fiery nighttime scene with Brigstocke, she and her child are bathed in sunlight, holding each other. Tell me about the feeling you wanted to leave the viewer with.

The thing is that it’s been a difficult journey—and in a world of contradictory narratives. I really believe that the only antidote to unreliable narratives is love. That is the moment in which truth finally arises. Truth is not the final answer. It’s not that now they have a happily-ever-after. But this is a moment of a new possibility, while everything else was about closing and shutting down.

Is there a broader message here for people?

Probably. We might perceive the world in a very pessimistic way, because, of course, there are not many clues to be optimistic about our present. But I think that we can feel optimistic about the future because the future belongs to the new generations. And I think that we need to give more credit to those new generations.

This Q&A has been edited to provide clarity and context.