Disclaimer; Sweetpea

“Disclaimer’s disclaimer should be ‘Warning: may not be as good as it should be’. Five-time Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón writes and directs, Cate Blanchett stars alongside Sacha Baron Cohen and Kevin Kline, and Apple’s bottomless budgets ensure everything looks just so. And yet despite all that, Disclaimer is a bit of a stinker. It should stand as a case study for the dangers of auteur bloat: too long, pretentious and with just a soupçon of naff, the suspicion is that no one had the power to tell the big-name signing to rein it in.”
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph

“Slow, turgid, self-important but beautifully shot episodes are interspersed with the occasional scene – usually courtesy of an astonishing Leslie Manville – that pops up amid the stilted, mannered rubbish on screen and suddenly bursts your heart with grief, then puts it in a blender and purees it. The rest of the time, you could happily puree Disclaimer.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“It’s a decent enough psychological suspense premise and – as expected from the Roma and Gravity director – it is so spectacularly filmed, so elegantly arranged and acted that at first glance it appears to be a fiendishly clever meditation on truth, perspective and trust. But as it goes on, it becomes clear Disclaimer is just another forgettable thriller, overly reliant on unreliable narrator tropes and beautiful women looking sad as they quaff Chablis in expensive kitchens. Enjoyable? Certainly. Fiendishly clever? Absolutely not.”
Francesca Steele, The i

“The storytelling is exceptional — Cuarón writes sublimely about family dynamics, sexual jealousy and the definitive lies that we tell to those closest to us and the greater ones we tell, ultimately, to ourselves. It’s thoughtful, disturbing, thrilling and sometimes even overwhelmingly good.”
Kevin Maher, The Times

“Sky’s screen version has been stripped of everything that makes the books great. It’s a flat, insipid six episodes that seem to go on for ever. Every possible punch is pulled, every sting drawn, every joke cut. The series reeks of cowardly decision-making at every turn.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Tonally it can be patchy, often not seeming sure whether it is going mostly for mirth or melancholy. I like it best when it’s the former. But it couldn’t have chosen any better for its dark heroine. Ella Purnell puts in a standout performance as the ill-treated, put-upon mouse that roared. And stabbed. And slashed.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The problem is that Sweetpea is never quite as twisted or devious as it thinks it is. Broadly speaking, though the moral scheme is messed up, what actually happens is formulaic. You know what’s coming from the title onwards.”
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph

“I really wanted to enjoy Sweetpea, but the six episodes never manage to elevate beyond the simple ‘quiet girl is really a killer’ plot. It’s easy to see why it’s been promoted as a female-led Dexter, but that only cements the feeling that we’ve seen this all before. Alas, Sweetpea the series is proof that not every popular book needs a TV adaptation.”
Emily Baker, The i