Read the early reviews of “Disclaimer” and you may be confused. The seven-part thriller, which debuts on Apple TV+ on October 11, has ratings ranging from two to five stars. Is the lavish series, directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Cate Blanchett (pictured), a must-watch or a dud? Who should you trust, boosters or carpenters? The answer is both. The show is an example of what could be called good bad art and a lesson in its evaluation.

PREMIUM

Jonathan drowned. But how? Roman à clef is part of a spiraling vendetta by his father Stephen (Kevin Kline), which is also based on intimate photos taken in Italy and a social media account that raises the dead. In a two-way chase, Catherine must follow Stephen as he methodically destroys her.

To say that a work of art is flawed or uneven is tautological. Not one is perfect, not even “Hamlet” or “Some Like It Hot”. But the flaws in “Disclaimer” are not inevitable errors in all mortal endeavors. They are shiny.

The plot crumbles under control: characters know things they shouldn’t and behave inexplicably. You might expect some synergy between Catherine’s job (discovering the truth) and her urgent personal mission (ditto). Not. “You’re so undone, Catherine!” shouted a colleague in one of many awkward lines.

Then there’s the voiceover. Meant to convey inner thoughts, it sounds like Alexa. graph sex scenes they seem free as they unfold; they seem more so after a twist drastically recasts the story’s gender politics. This twist feels like a fluke—less a theatrical stunt than a grown-up version of And Then They Woke Up.

Mr. Cuarón, who adapted the screenplay from Renée Knight’s novel, won five Oscars, including a clutch for “Roma”. At the Venice Film Festival, where “Disclaimer” had a well-received premiere, he said he thought of it not as television, but as “seven movies.” In an era of Prestige TVthis is as big as it gets. In some ways, it’s a disappointment. On others, it’s very good: not in a “so bad it’s good” kind of way, not just good enough to be entertaining, but hauntingly excellent.

The acting, like the dialogue, is mixed, but Ms. Blanchett shines and, as Jonathan’s grieving mother, Lesley Manville is heartbreaking. In a flashback, she wades into the fatal sea like a figure from ancient myth. The sequences and set pieces live up to the pedigree of the show. As the police inform Jonathan’s parents of his death, the television in the living room remains on, a relic of normality. Visiting his own son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) in his miserable digs, Robert Ravenscroft focuses, like a father, on a hole in his sock. Foxes, cats and a cockroach have memorable cameos.

Above all, “Disclaimer” boldly addresses big themes such as grief, erotic jealousy, marriage and its secrets, what parents do to children and vice versa. It dramatizes the fragility of even the softest lives and asks whether, by rehashing old traumas, you are salvaging the wound or causing it. Ultimately, this deceptive narrative makes viewers think about the stories people tell about the past and about others. Some characters deludedly believe in the best of their loved ones. Others too easily believe the worst, especially women.

For all the differences in genre, era and setting, the artist most remembered for this mixture of pulp and depth is Dostoevsky. His good and bad lines can seem histrionic and unkempt; but they provide immortal moments of drama and peer unblinkingly into the darkest recesses of the heart. “Disclaimer” has a dose of Dostoevsky’s reckless honesty and shares his interest in the calibration of guilt. If, for strong reasons, you wish for a terrible thing to happen, how guilty are you when it happens?

All this raises another set of questions, about art rather than morality. What is a better measure of a work of art, its average quality or its peaks? How should ambition be weighed against execution, shaky understanding against missteps, good against evil? In Back Story’s book, good-bad art that lingers in the memory is worth more than the kind that’s palatable, read or viewed serenely and instantly forgotten.

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