Alfonso Cuarón On ‘Disclaimer’ Oscar Consideration

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuarón is studying the possibility of creating a version of his acclaimed seven hour Apple TV+ production Disclaimer that can qualify for Academy Award consideration.

The phenomenal work directed and adapted by Cuarón from Renée Knight’s 2015 unputdownable novel, about a documentary filmmaker by the name of Catherine Ravenscroft, brilliantly played at different stages of her life by Leila George and Cate Blanchett, whose “mask has fallen” when she receives a manuscript of a supposedly fictional tale called The Perfect Stranger. 

There’s something in that book that connects to an incident in Ravenscroft’s life that she has kept secret for two decades.

The seven-part Apple TV+ drama received its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and was shown in two parts at the Telluride Film Festival over the Labor Day weekend. 

I was able to watch the thriller — well, it’s at once a super-charged thriller and also an incendiary family drama — in one sitting ahead of traveling to Colorado.

After watching it, my mantra became: If Disclaimer was a film then it would win the f**ing Academy Award for Best Picture.

That thought was at the top of my mind this afternoon here in Telluride when, per chance, I spotted Cuarón about to join the line at the Sheridan Opera House to see Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Jury prize winner All We Imagine as Light.

After a fun little chase across the Opera House lawn, I put my thesis to Cuarón and wondered how a seven-hour TV drama could somehow be adapted for Academy Award consideration. I don’t know all of the Academy’s rules but I’m sure there’s a way.

First off, Cuarón corrected me. 

“It’s a seven hour film,” he stressed as he was making his way to link up with Jason Reitman [director of Saturday Night, without exception the funniest movie of the year] in the queue.

I was happy to be put right because I too have thought of it as a seven-hour movie.

Cuarón broke away to chat with celebrated cinematographer Ed Lachman who was behind the camera to capture Angelina Jolie’s breathtaking portrayal of Maria Callas in Pablo Larraine’s film Maria.

Once again I asked Cuarón if there was some way of making Disclaimer eligible for Academy Award consideration this awards season? “It’s a good question, an interesting question and it’s something that I have thought about and considered but I don’t know the answer,” was his response to a question that he was loath to answer.

He also asked me not to write about this but my response was that I must.

Cuarón has enjoyed enormous success with the Academy. He has personally won Oscars for Best Editing and Best Director for Gravity; and Best Director and Best Cinematography for Roma.

For Disclaimer to qualify, perhaps there’s a way of releasing it into theaters in two parts, and selling both sets of tickets at the same time to sort of ensure that it’s a seamless transaction. And then after its theatrical release it could then be served up on Apple TV+.

Look, I have no clue as to what Cuarón and his collaborators at Anonymous Content, Esperanto, Apple TV+ and others will end up doing but gut instinct tells me that some of the best minds in the industry are already grappling with this fascinating conundrum.

And, well, wow, what an addition to the season Disclaimer would be. You’ve got Cuarón, Blanchett and George for starters. The cast has an abundance of exceptional performances from Kevin Kline (outstanding!), Lesley Manville, Sacha Baron Cohen (so good as Catherine’s spineless husband), and Kodi Smith-McPhee as their son. 

That’s before we get to the star-making role of Jonathan Brigstocke played by Louis Partridge.

Mr. Partridge is 21 years of age and he’s popped up in Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle and Enola Holmes, but nothing, in my view, he has done before will prepare you for what he does in Disclaimer. [Notice how I’m obeying Telluride Film Festival director Julie Huntsinger’s strict edict not to give away any spoilers to films seen up here in the mountains.]

Partridge is also a lead in the Netflix drama House of Guinness being made by Kudos Film and Television and Stigma Films. I also notice that Greta Gerwig has read the memo about him because she has cast Partridge in her untitled Chronicles of Narnia project for Netflix.

OK, deep breaths. 

Now let’s see whether or not Disclaimer will go for a shot at Oscar.