What’s it rated? TV-MA
When? 2024
Where’s it showing? Apple TV-Plus
Famed Mexican auteur Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mama también, Gravity, Roma) helms this miniseries based on Renée Knight’s 2015 novel about documentarian Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett), who receives a mysterious novel she believes features her as a central character portrayed as a heartless philanderer.
She learns it was sent by retired schoolteacher Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline), the father of Jonathan Brigstocke (Louis Partridge) who died 20 years earlier saving Catherine’s son, Nicholas (George Haarer), from drowning, and who, according to Brigstocke’s novel, had an affair with young Catherine (Leila George) after her husband left their seaside vacation early. Stephen holds Catherine responsible for his son’s death.
Eventually, Rashomon-style, we see flashbacks of competing versions of the truth about what happened 20 years ago between Catherine and Jonathan, but the heart of the series is Catherine coming to grips with who she is as a person as well as her messy life with her drug-abusing now-adult son, Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and her very devastated husband, Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen). It’s a study about how rumors can damage a life, and the guilt we carry for our perceived shortcomings. There’s a massive amount of talent behind this somber, dour tale. (seven 45- to 55-min episodes) Δ
This article appears in Nov 28 – Dec 8, 2024.
