Tar (2022)

This was one of 2022's most acclaimed films and is now apparently one of the frontrunners in the current Oscar race. Among its nominees are Todd Field (In the Bedroom, Little Children) for both writing and directing, along with two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett for Best Actress for her memorable performance as the eponymous Lydia Tar.  Tar is a renowned American composer/conductor leading an orchestra in Berlin - she's a worldwide celebrity with an impeccable reputation as a musical genius.  But her life soon becomes engulfed in both scandal and a looming sense of danger.....and we follow her on this admittedly wild ride!  The film also stars Noemie Merlant and Nina Hoss - let's see if it lives up to the hype. 

 Host: Geoff Gershon
 
Editors: Geoff and Ella Gershon

Producer: Marlene Gershon

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Transcript

TAR - 2022

Directed by Todd Field

Starring Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, Noemie Merlant, Sophie Kauer, Mila Bogojevic, Allan Corduner, Julian Glover, and Mark Strong

Genre: Psychological Drama (Audio clip)

I THINK I really liked this. 🤔 For its entire 160 minute runtime, I found myself very engrossed with the life of Lydia Tar and her exhaustive life as a top-flight composer. We delve into her world (mostly Berlin, with much time also spent in NYC) from the get-go with a lot of discussion of music composition which often went above my head but was no less compelling to hear spoken. And of course it helps to have Ms. Blanchett delivering this dialogue in such a confident manner with her patrician American accent in full effect.

She's often surrounded by sycophants, students, protégés, and upper-crust elites, the latter of which are always expecting to be impressed by her....and this is where the story derives much of its tension. Lydia is hyper-focused on maintaining a certain image but also can never seem to help herself when it comes to aggressively pushing others down who question her or threaten that image. EVERY-thing she says or does has a distinct purpose....she composes, she leads, she orchestrates, that's her entire purpose. Of course she can't often predict the after-effects of her actions and how reactions can mutate under the lens of social media...which is how things begin to get dark for her. By the halfway poinf of Todd Field's disquieting opus, it appears that she might be inadvertently orchestrating her own destruction. :o 

Blanchett isn't going for likeable nor relatable with this performance....and Field never lets her off the hook with the way she's framed or shot either. It's been 16 years since Field last directed the similarly disquieting Little Children. There are several shots where Blanchett - as beautiful as she is - is made to look QUITE severe, especially when she's conducting on-stage. With those two films plus In The Bedroom, Field clearly maintains an effective cold vibe throughout which serves each story.....though as with Little Children which I recall having a tangential ending which didn't quite land for me, I'm not sure the third act for this film worked for me either. 

And therein lies the rub: you could make a strong case that the final 40 minutes of Tar are by far the most entertaining. 🤔 I mean Field (who also wrote the screenplay) takes some WILD swings here but much of what transpires just feels too broad for the delicately written two hours which preceded it. And I'm pretty torn about the final 15 minutes which makes its point but unlike the rest of the movie which leads to it…..feels as if the director took some easy visual shortcuts to make HIS point. It just feels a BIT lazy.  Which leads me to a final shot that I just found even MORE confounding.  Overall, Todd Field still wrote and directed a TRUE original that’s unlike any other movie I have seen in years….and it succeeds for the most part.  

Best Needledrop (best song cue or score used throughout runtime of film): 

Amazingly, Blanchett herself actually DID conduct some sessions during the filming of the movie including a few featuring the work of her character’s favorite composer Gustav Mahler.  Mahler was of course a renowned German composer who performed most of his work during the 19th century before passing away in 1911.  He was considered one of the leading composers of his generation and we keep returning to his work again and again during several rehearsal and performance sequences throughout the movie, mostly notably one later in the film which I will not dare spoil but let’s just say is one of the more memorable scenes.  We see how this music brings out both the best AND the worst in our central character.  The piece that we hear memorable snippets of during these scenes is Mahler’s 5th Symphony, most notably a brass-filled introduction which REALLY does the bring the house down…with a strong assist from Lydia of course. (Audio clip) 

Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film):

Since this film hit the festival circuit last year, it has received enormous acclaim and awards attention…..MOSTLY focusing on its star, Cate Blanchett, who is likely THE current front-runner to win the Oscar for Best Actress in March.  No doubt this is a showcase performance for Blanchett and she is one of our greatest living actors right now.

However lost amidst much of the hype are notices for any one else from the cast who are all strong across the board including Noemie Merlant who plays Lydia’s put-upon assistant Francesca and Sophie Kauer who plays Olga, the hottest new cello prodigy in her orchestra…..and the new sorta-object of Lydia Tar’s affection.  Even more deserving of acclaim and awards attention is actually Nina Hoss with probably the second most prominent role in the film – she plays Sharon who is Lydia’s long-suffering live-in partner, they have been together for many years in Berlin also living with Sharon’s adopted daughter, Petra.

Hoss has a VERY tricky role in that she is often silently reacting to Lydia’s behavior whether at their large apartment OR during their rehearsals as she is one of the lead violinists of her orchestra – in essence, Sharon is the true heart of the movie as she’s more open with her emotions than her partner.  She even effectively delivers the most biting line of dialogue to Tar late in the movie when she briskly summarizes the type of person Lydia really is….it’s a great moment for her among several others and it’s hard to not feel for her character.  Nina Hoss is a German actress who has been at it for more than twenty years and has recently begun to take on more English-speaking roles….I know her best for a prominent role which she recently had on the Showtime spy series, “Homeland.”  She has quite a strong presence and can clearly hold her own against more showier performances including Blanchett here and Clair Danes’ wild lead turn for Homeland.  The competition for the Best Supporting Actress award this year is very strong with Angela Bassett the likely front-runner…..but I still believe Hoss is at least deserving of a nomination. 

Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie):

I was actually leery of spoiling this particular moment in the movie but I just saw that it’s now actually be shared online as the latest TV spot for this movie….so the jig is up so to speak!  THIS sequence pretty much sets the wild third act of this movie into overdrive….allow me to set the scene as we’re just over two hours into the movie.  Lydia is currently crashing in her secondary apartment in Berlin and has been practicing the piano, doing some composing – her world is already crumbling but then there’s a sudden knock at the door.  It’s a middle-aged couple whom she doesn’t recognize….apparently their elderly sick mother was the one who died earlier in a previous unsettling scene, along with her sister who was taking care of her.  

Lydia expresses her condolences and they briefly ask about the music they were hearing from her place….she takes this as a compliment and starts to close the door.  But then, one of them asks her if there are times they can show their mother’s apartment when there is no ”noise” coming from her place…..Lydia is taken aback and starts laughing, yup THIS is the last straw!  

And what follows from Lydia in the next scene is a true pivot point for the movie tonally…..I’m still torn as to whether this scene works for the movie overall, you could even make a case that this scene is when the movie starts to go off the rails.  But one thing I can be sure of is that Blanchett NAILS it – it’s funny, it’s memorable, it’s meme-able, and it’s undoubtedly THE best on-screen usage of an accordion EVER.  And yeah, this is just a few months removed from the Weird Al biopic…. (Audio clip) 

MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film): 

At the end of the day of course, this is still Cate Blanchett’s movie – it’s HER bravura performance which carries it through some challenging scenes, verbose exchanges, and some of those wild narrative swings taken during the final third.  Like I said, she’s not particularly sympathetic but she still commands the screen even with a good amount of dialogue which honestly went above my head.

This is just the latest in a long line of fantastic performances which the Australian actress has delivered since breaking out in the late ‘90’s with her starring role as Queen Elizabeth in the historical epic Elizabeth – from there, she delivered such an extensive variety of performances from her memorable turn as Galadrel in the Lord of the Rings trilogy to playing real-life figures like her Oscar-winning turn as Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator or…..Bob Dylan in I’m Not There….. to romantic co-leads in comedies like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or Pushing Tin…..to even menacing action villains in movies like Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or the underrated Hanna.  There’s nothing she can’t do and she pulls off this idiosyncratic individual so convincingly that many first-time viewers upon early release had the impression that Lydia Tar was actually a REAL person.  Of course, Todd Field deserves enormous props for first creating this character on the page with Blanchett in mind though the MVP HAS to be Cate Blanchette for delivering what MIGHT be her best overall career performance.  

Final Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Overall this film has quite a bit to say about art, commerce, sexual politics, and - as many red pill folks have pointed out online - "cancel culture" though I don't think Field is making the clear-cut statement which THEY think he's making about it. :/ It's a very strong film though I'm not sure if all of it gels together to be the unqualified masterpiece many are praising it to be.

Streaming at Peacock

And that ends another METRONOMIC review!