Cate Blanchett’s Trial, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Easy Money
CATE BLANCHETT’S TRIAL
Cate Blanchett is great at hiding.
She plays the lead in Apple TV+’s upcoming series Disclaimer, directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Roma, Gravity, Children of Men).
Here’s the official synopsis:
Catherine Ravenscroft (Blanchett), a successful and respected television documentary journalist whose work has been built on revealing the concealed transgressions of long-respected institutions. When an intriguing novel written by a widower appears on her bedside table, she is horrified to realize she is a key character in a story that she had hoped was long buried in the past. A story that reveals her darkest secret. A secret she thought was hers alone.
Blanchett, a long-respected institution herself, stated:
“What I became fascinated by was how a person can be altered in imperceptible ways when traumatic events are buried and remain unprocessed… People carrying around concealed trauma can have no idea how heavy this burden is, how deep their rage and shame.”
Blanchett has excelled at roles like these, burying her secrets and smothering her transgressions.
In 2022, she played the title role in Tár, a world-famous composer who, moments into the film, is introduced as a distinguished EGOT winner and savant.
This setup is important because Blanchett, in both Tár and Disclaimer, must be portrayed as a hyper-successful professional. Her native intelligence is embedded in these roles, which also excuses her myopic focus on her career.
Her community stature excuses her behavior; in Tár, it’s her outbursts of rage; in Disclaimer, it’s emotional concealment.
And that’s why she’s so incredibly watchable because we like to see her break at the cracks.
In Don’t Look Up (2021) she plays a different variety of journalist, a phony talk show host who takes pleasure in knowing humanity is doomed.
But in Disclaimer, it is Blanchett’s personal humanity that is at stake.
Blanchett discussed that character: