****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: Cate Blanchett gives a phenomenal performance, but it might not be enough to elevate this movie above its massive third act failures.
Lydia, oh Lydia, have you heard about Lydia? Lydia the conductor lady.
The Lydia in question is the self-destructive, megalomaniacal, world-renowned, superstar conductor/composer Lydia Tar, the fictional lead character played by Cate Blanchett in the new movie Tar.
The film chronicles Tar’s balancing act atop the classical music world as she navigates her darker nature as well as cancel culture and the #MeToo movement. That Tar is a lesbian woman in a male-dominated field who abuses her power, is either a clever or cowardly twist on the story…but more on that later.
Tar is the first film for acclaimed director Todd Field in sixteen years, unfortunately, it fails to live up to all of its intriguing and tantalizing possibilities, but it does feature moments of brilliance that are deliriously enticing and highlight the art of cinema at its best.
For example, the very best scene in any movie this year is a ten-minute tour-de-force from early on in Tar. The scene, which has no cuts, revolves around Lydia Tar, one of the greatest living conductor/composers in the world, teaching a conducting class at Julliard. In the class, she interacts with a sheepishly overwhelmed but defiant “pan-gendered, BIPOC” student who mindlessly regurgitates the current cultural buffoonery regarding the “evils” of the canon of white European “cis” males…like Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. This student doesn’t like Bach because he was a “misogynist” who fathered twenty children, and therefore refuses to study him or examine his work.
Tar tries a variety of tactics to get this young student to abandon their myopic, identity-fueled, anti-intellectual position but to no avail. Then out of frustration, or fury, she drops her considerable intellectual hammer on him and exposes his personal idiocy for all to see. Then, in typical modern fashion, the “pan-gender, BIPOC” student does not engage Tar in debate or defend himself, but just storms off in a huff.
Watching this scene, which features a bravura performance from Blanchett, brilliant writing and deft camera choreography, was pure joy. So much so that I’ve gone back and watched just this single scene more than five times since I finished the film…it’s that good.
Part of what makes that scene so compelling is that Blanchett is simply one of the great actors and she’s on the top of her game in Tar.
Blanchett’s performance is mesmerizing because it’s so complex and layered. Blanchett is performing as Tar, who is someone who is constantly performing. Lydia Tar wears a mask incessantly in order to maintain the cult of artistic greatness she has built up around herself. Blanchett’s ability to maintain Tar’s deception and self-deception, is a testament to her expansive talent and enormous skill.
I’ve no doubt that Blanchett will be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, and most likely will win it, and deservedly so, and that single, extended scene of her teaching at Julliard should be required viewing for any actors or actresses or aspiring actors or actresses.
But as glorious as that Julliard scene is, it’s also a sign of how far the film falls in its third act. I won’t give details to avoid spoilers, but this scene is visually referenced later in the movie in such a ham-handed, cheap, ‘Lifetime Movie of the Week’ way that it truly tarnishes and diminishes the entire film.
The first third of Tar is a truly engaging and phenomenal piece of arthouse moviemaking that skillfully pulls you in. But the final third is so rushed, and filled with a bevy of unearned narrative and character developments, that it scuttles the entire venture.
For example, the nadir for Lydia Tar comes in the third act when she humiliates herself in public (once again I won’t give details to avoid spoilers), but this scene is so poorly conceived and executed as to be absurd. It’s the height of unintentional comedy and the depths of cinematic malpractice.
The film’s devolution away from reality into hyper-drama, which includes the previously mentioned exploitation of the Julliard scene, as well as the over-the-top dramedy of Tar’s ultimate breakdown, destroy its cinematic and dramatic credibility. Ultimately, this renders the film an overly long, dramatically inert enterprise that is conspicuously devoid of artistic satisfaction.
One of the more intriguing themes of Tar is the notion of the cult of the great artist. Tar may or may not be supremely talented, but she deftly builds around herself this persona of great artistry and masterfully navigates the political landscape of the music world to make it manifest.
In this way Tar is reminiscent of her creator, writer/director Todd Field. Field was a middling actor before he became a director, and his great claim to fame was playing the supporting role of Nick Nightingale in Stanley Kubrick’s last movie Eyes Wide Shut.
Kubrick died before that movie came out in 1999, but two years later Todd Field’s first feature film, In the Bedroom premiered. The marketing around Field and In the Bedroom dealt a lot with the notion that Field learned filmmaking at the foot of Kubrick, like he was Kubrick’s protégé or something. This narrative was untrue but it was clever, after all Field did act in a Kubrick film and Kubrick was no longer around to refute the notion of being his mentor.
I thought In the Bedroom was massively overrated and it seemed to me that critics, and the Oscars, loved the film and Field because they were, by extension, paying homage to the late, great Kubrick.
By constructing this Kubrick creation myth around his directing career, Field had successfully built a brand critics would support going forward. To be clear, Field is not some fraud, he did get his MFA from AFI after all, which is so small feat. And his movies, both In the Bedroom and Little Children, are not bad movies, but they also aren’t remarkable in any way. The point being that Field and his films simply are not worthy of the critical love they’ve received.
It's this theme of the cult of the great artist that I found to be the most alluring in Tar because it rings the most-true, as I’ve seen it up close and personal in its various stages in London, New York and Hollywood.
Other themes, like the cancel culture/#MeToo stuff, actually feel a little too cute by half. What I mean by that is that telling an abuse of power/sexual predation story but putting a lesbian woman as its protagonist is self-defeating and an act of artistic cowardice.
Audiences love Cate Blanchett and are willing to give her character a benefit of the doubt. Certain audiences, like the target audience of coastal elites who will be more likely to see Tar, are reflexively forgiving of “minorities”, like a gay woman in a male dominated field, Like Tar. This makes Lydia Tar, no matter her faults and failings, very redeemable in their eyes.
These audiences in turn would be automatically repulsed by a man who did the same things as Tar, because in their belief system and in our culture’s eyes, men are, simply put, irredeemable.
Because of this, it seems to me the more difficult, but ultimately more worthy and satisfying story to tell, is that of a man abusing his power like Tar, and trying to make that deemed irredeemable, redeemable.
For example, I couldn’t help but think that, as great as she is, if Cate Blanchett’s Tar were a man played by say…Robert Downey Jr., this film would’ve been infinitely more interesting, and much more controversial, which in turn would’ve led it to be at the center of the cultural zeitgeist.
No one is talking about Tar now. Normal people haven’t and won’t see it, and the talk shows and all the rest of the media world aren’t buzzing with debates over its merits or failings, its morality or immorality.
If Robert Downey Jr. was playing Tar, a charming yet arrogant musical genius (is anyone better at being arrogant and charming?) while Harvey Weinstein and Danny Masterson’s rape trials were on-going, people would have very strong opinions about it and not be afraid to share them.
But instead, we get a sort of soft peddling of a woman abusing her power, which feels like the equivalent of dipping a toe into the swamp that is sexual exploitation, instead of taking a deep dive.
To be clear, there’s a bunch of stuff I liked in Tar. Blanchett’s performance, Florian Hoffmeister’s subtle but powerful cinematography and Hildur Guonadottir’s score are worth the price of admission.
But unfortunately, the movie’s third act failings and its reluctance to get its hands too dirty on the #MeToo manure pile, neuter its artistic and narrative power and render it ultimately a rather unsatisfying and frustrating cinematic experience.
Regular audiences more at home at the cineplex, will be bored to tears by Tar’s deliberate arthouse pacing and its more symbolic storytelling devices.
Afficionados of the arthouse should give Tar a try, but I recommend if they wait until it hits streaming, as shelling out big bucks, either at the theatre or on Video on Demand, will feel like a bad decision in hindsight.
©2022
