HE to Friendo: “It pains me to say after catching the first two episodes of Disclaimer, Alfonso Cuaron‘s seven-part miniseries, that it feels underwhelming. Almost in an awful way even, which sounds like a terrible thing to say about a film by the great Alfonso.

”It certainly doesn’t do what most of us want films of this sort (psychologically complex adult soap opera-slash-melodrama) to do. It doesn’t pull you in or energize. The dialogue feels clunky, on-the-nosey.”

Friendo to HE: “It gets maddeningly worse in the final episode. Are you on episode 4 yet?”

HE to Friendo: “Just the first two. I didn’t want to to watch it on the Macbook Pro. I wanted the 65-inch experience.”

Friendo to HE: “Episode 3 is very sexual. The series has its moments, and is beautifully shot, but it mainly feels like trashy TV.”

HE to Friendo: “Beautiful spacious sets. Shot in London, Mexico and Sydney. Under-lighted, bluish-gray, way-too-shadowy cinematography from the great Emmanuel Lubezki and Bruno Delbonnel. But the painful dialogue! And puffy-faced, bewhiskered Kevin Kline’s narration!

“What mostly comes through is the lavishly handsome, highly sophisticated design of the sets…no expense spared.

“I don’t know the exact budget but it feels like Alfonso kicking back with a nice, flush paycheck gig. He didn’t have a strong idea or theme so he decided ‘fuck it, I’ll make a blue-chip Gillian Flynn-meets-Nicole Kidman movie, only starring Cate Blanchett.’ And poor de-balled Borat, grim and half-frowning all through it.”

Friendo told me the full Disclaimer story, including the curious ending. I won’t be sharing it, of course, but down the road someone will need to explain a couple of things. Because the final twist doesn’t seem to add up. What is revealed about a certain years-old narrative concerning Blanchett’s character…I can’t say anything but it doesn’t feel right.