'Tár' A Review

 Tár is a drama about abuser and internationally renowned conductor Lydia Tár(Cate Blanchett). The film opens on a Q&A event which neatly provides Lydia's professional bonafides as well as sets up tension with her beleaguered assistant as well as a mysterious young woman who is seen watching the event. Lydia is generally self-centered, pretentious, rude, and cruel. We see her act this way with her wife and colleagues and eventually allegations of grooming and abuse of power come to light.

Blanchett is a fine actor but either she is out of her depth or the script lets her down. The character is profoundly irritating and uninteresting. Rich, entitled, god-complex, rigid and the, presumably, redeeming quality- talent, passion for music- is not shown or translated in an effective way so ultimately what you are left with is a shallow elitist character clearly consumed with avarice and ego. The character, as written, is unengaging and on top of that as played by Blanchett is very stilted, very manufactured, very presentational. Whether that's deliberate or not it simply reads as contrived. The same is true of a lot of the cast, aside from Nina Hoss as Sharon Lydia's wife who gives virtually the only realistic performance, a lot of it feels fake. There's a recurring bit with two characters that Lydia deals with, one having a nervous tick of knee bobbing and another with pen clicking, both of which, as portrayed, do not feel real in any way, it reads very clearly as unnatural, as an acting direction.

Visually it's very crisp, the costuming very slick, the score including a fair amount of diegetic music from the orchestra, is all very effective. There are some cool dream sequences too, its clear in his decade plus off writer/director Todd Field hasn't lost any skill as a filmmaker. The same can't be said of his ability as a screenwriter.

First and foremost, who cares about Lydia, the script offers nothing about her character that is engaging other than her "genius" which is repeatedly voiced explicitly but never effectively shown. The attempts at commentary about cancel culture, #metoo, the "price" of genius fall flat. The circumstances are never fully investigated, Lydia's character both what she actually did and what her perception of that is is never explored. As portrayed she has little(or we are not given access to) interiority. So, given that, what's the point? The film hints at bigger issues but lacks the courage to actually get in the trenches and address them. It hints, it implies, it skirts and in that cowardice reveals it's irresponsibility. And taking the bigger issues aside the character is just kind of awful so why would we want to spend over two and a half hours with her when she doesn't do or change much at all. What does she have to teach us? What humanity is on display? Nothing and not much.

Frustrating, regressive, and shallow.

Currently in theaters coming soon to VOD.

Don't See It.