TÁR (2022)

Smith’s Verdict: ****
Reviewed by Tanner Smith

In the exceptional 2015 Steve Jobs biopic “Steve Jobs,” the most impactful line of dialogue aimed at the titular egomaniacal genius is as follows: “You can be decent and gifted at the same time.”

While that film ended with Jobs becoming a little more decent towards his family, friends, and colleagues, I believe the central character of “TÁR” would scoff and laugh at that very insight.

Meet Lydia Tár. She’s an amazingly gifted, wildly tenacious, world renowned classical music conductor. She’s also a caring (and very protective) mother, a passionate partner, a giver, and a major influence for many.

She is also a master manipulator, toxic, and extremely narcissistic–and a sexual predator.

Not that all of that is thrown at us at once. While the film opens with an extended sequence in which Tár is interviewed in front of a large audience in New York City, not everything is revealed to us. She tells New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik (played by actual New Yorker journalist Adam Gopnik) simply what you would find on a Wikipedia article or an autobiography. (And indeed, Tár has one coming out soon–in the movie, not in real life.)

Side-note: We do get a hint of how superior and self-satisfied people like Tár and her fans feel about themselves when Gopnik, in his introduction about Tár, mentions that she is one of five “EGOT” (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) winners and everyone laughs at the mention of Mel Brooks as another.

Cate Blanchett stars as Lydia Tár, who is also about Lydia Tár and only Lydia Tár. Everyone else is a supporting character in her own personal story and she isn’t self-aware enough to realize her methods in the Berlin Philharmonic where she rehearses, in the home with her violinist wife Sharon (Nina Hoss) and adopted daughter (Mila Bogojevic), and in a Juilliard classroom where she teaches are questionable. Lydia is hiding things from Sharon, fiercely protective of her daughter to the point where she threatens a little girl for bullying her, and in one very impressive unbroken 10-15 minute take, she ridicules a Juilliard student for not taking an interest in Bach’s music because of his identity politics. She also seems to be grooming a Russian cellist named Olga (Sophie Kauer) perhaps the same way in which she took interest in another protégé Krista before it advanced to something more that didn’t work out, leading to Lydia blacklisting her and ruining her musical career.

Even when Lydia asks her assistant Francesca (Noémie Merlant) to remove any and all emails that mention Krista, it’s quite clear this is going to come back to get her. Her inability to handle certain things around her (which also include insomnia, sensitivity to sounds, and a neighbor who cares for a dying mother) only makes things worse, and when she doesn’t acknowledge flaws that could harm others, she digs herself a deeper hole.

I would have thought “TÁR” was based on a real person if you had told me, and I would have believed you. But no, this character is an original creation from writer-director Todd Field’s original screenplay, and it’s a remarkable character study made even more effectively disturbing in this post-#MeToo world, in which powerful people cannot get away with hurtful methods anymore. And without giving too much away, that is essentially what “TÁR” is about.

Cate Blanchett is nothing short of amazing in this role. She lives and breathes Lydia Tár. I don’t know if Blanchett trusted Field or if Field trusted Blanchett or if they had a great understanding together–but I can tell, in many of these long sequences in which Blanchett has to hold our attention in a single shot that goes on for several minutes at a time (such as the aforementioned 10-15 minute unbroken take), that Blanchett knows this character inside and out and both Field and his cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister are showing her (and in effect, showing us) the world of Lydia Tár.

And upon further research, apparently Cate Blanchett had to learn German and conduct an orchestra as well as re-learn to play the piano for the film. Her hard work has certainly paid off in this reviewer’s eyes, and I’d give her the Oscar and Indie Spirit right away.

Where this fascinating yet terrible individual’s life goes is intriguing and engrossing. (And as someone who doesn’t especially care for movies over 2.5 hours, and this one is two hours and 37 minutes, it should say something that I was never bored by this material.) “TÁR” both a character piece and a cautionary tale with an intelligent screenplay from Todd Field and a remarkably excellent leading performance from Cate Blanchett. The result is like a fine concerto of many and all emotions.