Cate Blanchett as Catherine Ravenscroft in the new Apple TV+ series Disclaimer.

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Since streaming has become a thing, I wonder why more people who make television don’t take advantage of its freedoms.

Sure, creatives often talk about making 10-hour films. But that’s often just empty chatter to cover up projects that feel like skeletal ideas stretched over too many hours, or a jumble of plot points clumsily squeezed into episodes designed primarily to increase engagement .

And then comes a project like Apple TV+ Disclaimer. This seven-episode series leverages the breadth and sophistication of streaming to tell an ever-evolving story, seemingly one thing before morphing into something else.

Expectations are subverted by asking pointed questions of both the characters and the audience.

A woman who has everything is faced with her deepest secret

It all starts with Cate Blanchett’s character Catherine Ravenscroft. She’s a journalist and documentary filmmaker successful enough to one moment win a high-profile award presented by CNN star Christiane Amanpour, and the next moment credibly fool a colleague into believing Jodie Foster is in one Play in the film adaptation.

She’s the kind of high-achieving, work-oriented alpha female that Blanchett plays so well – see the 2022 Oscar-nominated film tar – flanked by a well-meaning but ruthless husband and an emotionally struggling son.

Leading a glamorous upper-middle class life, Catherine is a character who is easy to envy and suspect. When a novel appears in her mail telling a slightly fictionalized story of her extramarital encounter with a young man decades ago, it’s hard to find sympathy for a woman who seems to have cheated on everyone in her life.

The book with the title The perfect strangeris introduced with an ominous, er, disclaimer: “Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is not coincidental.”

The novel paints a picture of the terrible self-absorption that Catherine desperately wants to hide. It describes how a woman had an affair with a young man who later drowned trying to save her son, prompting the woman to tell police she didn’t know him in order to cover up their liaison.

A journalist known for revealing other people’s secrets appears to have a terrible one of her own.

Kodi Smit-McPhee plays Nicholas, Catherine’s son, while Sacha Baron Cohen plays her husband Robert Ravenscroft.

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A story that moves cautiously

It is difficult to explain the many twists and turns of this tale without leaving spoilers that would ruin the experience. And some may think that the plot – written with an auteur’s flair by writer/director Alfonso Cuarón based on a 2015 novel by Renee Knight – is too predictable and outlandish to land with the force that he so obviously intended.

But Cuarón’s patient, attentive style captivated me. (You’ll spend far too much time contemplating the inner workings of a cat who constantly appears in Catherine’s house at the strangest moments, artfully framed through the director’s lens.) This is a story that treads carefully in revealing its secrets , but never completes an episode without providing a forward momentum that leaves you with new clues, bigger questions, and a desire to learn more.

Cuarón, a Mexican filmmaker whose name is associated with ambitious films such as Gravity And Romaputs together an ace cast here. Sacha Baron Cohen is convincingly emasculated as Catherine’s legitimate husband Robert, and Oscar nominee Kodi Smit-McPhee brings maximum emo energy as drug-addicted son Nicholas.

But it’s Kevin Kline who is the revelation, even though he’s been delivering Oscar, Emmy and Tony-winning work for decades. Kline is an American who is often cast as the prototypical idiot. Here he skillfully plays a quietly acerbic British widower – retired private school teacher Stephen Brigstocke, who is devastated after the loss of his wife.

Kevin Kline as Stephen Brigstocke.

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With impeccable accent and disheveled style, Kline plays Brigstocke as a man grieving a family life shattered by loss and stumbling upon an ambitious, merciless plan for revenge.

He blames Catherine for his son’s death, which happened after the two met years ago. Brigstocke vows to make them pay in part by distributing the book.

Changing narrators bring different perspectives

Even the narrative is complicated here. While Kline’s character often reveals his thoughts by speaking directly to the viewer, Catherine’s ideas are conveyed by an omniscient narrator around She sometimes sounds like the voice of the book itself. (And yes, it can be confusing, possibly intentionally). There are also flashbacks, with Kline Brigstocke playing a younger man and another actress, Leila George, playing the younger version of Catherine.

It’s a story about the power of storytelling and the danger of assumptions that lead us to believe.

Yes, the ending is dramatic and highlights these ideas in stark terms – some may even find it overly manipulative and a little too cheesy.

But I reveled in a well-told story that truly earned every second of its seven-episode length, giving a master filmmaker the time, talent and resources to craft a story perfect for the streaming space.

We hope some other people who work in this industry will listen carefully.