Tár - Movie Review

Critics Score - 6 of 10

General Audience Score - 4 of 10

If you were to try and name the greatest actresses currently working in Hollywood, you’d undoubtedly go through names like Meryl Streep, Olivia Coleman, Viola Davis and Frances McDormand. Actresses that no matter what they’re in really, they elevate even the simplest and most mundane roles into something really special. Among those names would certainly be Cate Blanchett. This year she brings us a film called Tár, a story of a woman orchestra conductor/composer who’s work begins to suffer at she hits some road bumps in her life. Tár as a film boils down to being one massive construct for Blanchett to showcase her talents, which are exceptional, and showcase them she does, she’s unbelievable. As a film critic, someone who judges other people’s art, I have to use the word pretentious through gritted teeth. But this is one of the most pretentious films I’ve encountered this year, she looks down upon the general audience with disdain and like a middle-schooler at the senior prom, struggles tirelessly to convince us she belongs and tries to impress those that would scrutinize her. Like a haughty royal personage, her presence demands respect, but her arrogance and conceit leave you cold and with a bitter taste in your mouth. She is the movie, the movie is her, her name is Lydia Tár, and don’t forget the damn apostrophe.

SYNOPSIS - The movie starts with a quick shot of Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) on an private airplane, wearing dark sunglasses and slouched over a table, she’s being recorded or live streamed by someone’s phone. But we move right into watching the introductory credits, an antiquated process all other films have left behind but one that this film needed to employ to give the film an “artistic flair” or some nonsense. As if the film isn’t long enough, we get to enjoy four minutes of black screen with white credits, while we listen to forest sounds and an oriental woman vocalizing lyrics before we finally see Lydia Tár appear back on screen, this time she is waiting in a hallway before a concert. Her assistant Francesca (Noémie Merlant) comes out, sprays her hands with hand sanitizer, provides her a glass of water of which she takes a sip, then because she’s feeling like a pimp, does a quick hand swipe on each side of her shirt to get that dirt off her shoulders. We hear a voiceover introduction of a man about to interview Lydia Tár, he’s rattling off her numerous accomplishments, but as he speaks we watch as she spreads out record albums of composers on the floor. After she chooses an album cover to imitate the fashion from, her assistant makes a call to a high end custom clothing shop, we see her getting measured and then the fabric being cut, sown and ironed by hand. Real high end, expensive attire.

This evolution of the high end garment folds into the actual interview we’ve been hearing the introduction voiceover for, a man sits on a vacant stage save two black chairs and a table with a couple of VOSS water cylinders and glasses on it. Tár sits across from him and the interview, like the movie, seemingly goes on forever. She gushes over all things orchestra conductor related, the screenplay working hard to lose the audience with big words, industry names and musical references that most general audiences, myself included, would need to Google for a definition. For example, she speaks about a time she spent in the Amazon, “The Shipibo-Conibo only perceive a “nicaro” or song, if the singer is there, right, on the same side of the spirit that, that created it, and in that way the past and the presence converge.” This dialogue is fine in the moment, but accumulatively it begins to wear the audience down. Blanchett just disappears into the Lydia Tár character and it’s always entertaining to watch an actor or actress performing at such a high level. But after almost ten minutes of the interview, I began to see how the overindulgent screenplay would start to wear out it’s welcome and the obscure references and obtuse language will lose general audiences. After the interview, we get an interlude of some kind of a reporter asking her a couple questions before we head into a dining room where a fellow conductor Elliot (Mark Strong) and Tár have another conversation of several minutes of mind numbing dialogue. The actual plot of Lydia Tár’s life encountering some irregularities and having to face her demons eventually begins to draw viewers in, but for many viewers, this drama may arrive too little and too late.

The technicals achievements of this film are on the surface quite impressive. Starting with the writing and direction, Todd Field’s direction is precise, he executes this story to near perfection, this is an excellent execution of the page to screen transferral, that I cannot deny. But the screenplay, from a purely technical perspective, is fine, if not overstuffed and far too long. But in the context of an enjoyable piece of filmmaking, this screenplay makes the viewer suffer through page after page of unnecessary dialogue and irrelevant material and the film suffers for it. There are confusing plot lines and unresolved cyphers the film mentions and does nothing with. Blanchett is fabulous, not much more needs to be said about her, she’ll probably win her third Oscar for this performance. The rest of the cast all pull their weight, but everyone pales by comparison to the show Cate is putting on for us. The wood and stone aesthetics of the home and office spaces are really impressive, the production design of this world is outstanding. The sound work and original score are also great, the music and compositions by Hildur Guonadóttir are excellent, after winning an Oscar for Joker, she may very well get another nomination for either Tár or Women Talking this year. Despite it’s achievements, in the end, like a failed crossbreed of Nightmare Alley and Whiplash, this film is far less compelling than either of those and has no epic finale, but it condescends to it’s audiences and acts like it’s the hottest ticket out right now. I can assure you, it’s not.

SUMMARY - Tár has it’s redeeming qualities, but this is cut and dried a movie lover’s film. Cinephiles will rejoice in Blanchett’s performance and a few of the technicals, but will probably be left wanting. General audiences, well, you can’t say you weren’t warned. Cate Blanchett is great, probably perfect. Tár, well, it’s dark, cold, sticky and while you’re in it you think you’ll never get out.