By Renu Mehta
Toronto
Award winning actor Cate Blanchett was greeted with thunderous applause as she arrived at the Royal Alexandra Theatre for her film Disclaimer on September 9. Wearing spoons on her black pants suit outfit at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), she certainly strangely stood out.
Blanchett was accompanied with Five-time Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuarón who has adapted Renée Knight’s novel into a seven-part psychological thriller about a journalist, played by the actor, who is threatened with the exposure of her darkest secret.
A book is sent to Catherine Ravenscroft (played by Blanchett) and when she reads the story, she is horrified to see that it is her own secret that nobody knew about and that she thought was buried years ago. Questions race through her mind as to the ‘Who’ and ‘What’ and how will she protect her family that included husband Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen), her son Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Her own reputation is on the line. These are the questions, Cuarón, the writer and director, explores in his seven-part psychological thriller. In his first foray into serialized storytelling, the director keeps the script jumping from past to present, exploring how perceptions, even flawed ones, can be unwavering.
“It was pre-pandemic when my agent called me and he was so cryptic,” says Blanchett as she explained her first introduction to the script. “I was told it’s a very loose outline of the three episodes and he said I don’t want to talk to you until you’ve read it. And so, I read it, I threw it across the room. And whenever you throw anything across the room, you realize it that you confront it and you are challenged by it. And then we began talking after that”.
Blanchett’s brilliant co-star is Kevin Kline, who plays Stephen Brigstocke, one of many characters wrestling with the implications of the mysterious book.
“First of all, my career began here at TIFF. I just love Toronto,” said Kline to a resounding applause by the audience. Speaking about his preparation for the role, Kline said: “I just took each day as it came and I was reminded of my role ‘you are young now; you are old’. It took a long time to shoot. I never know how I did it.”
Rounding out the cast is Lesley Manville, Louis Partridge and Hoyeon, all at their absolute best.
But it was Australian actress, Leila George, who played the role of the younger Catherine Ravenscroft, who stole the show both on stage and in the film with her superb performance in her few scenes and her steamy sexual scene in the film.
George was brought in quite late in the process and when she came to London for the shoot, she saw some scenes that Blanchett had already shot so she could understand how to play the character’s younger version.
“I had to look at her physicality and I worked with a dialect coach to help me with the voice,” says George. “Really Kate was so generous with me. When we met for that one day and she said hey it’s you now and go. Good luck! That was really liberating and gave me the freedom to trust that Alfonso would steer me in the right direction if I needed to. But also, hopefully, honor the incredible work that she had already created.”
