By: Andrew Wing

TÁR is a 2022 psychological drama film written, directed, and produced by Todd Field (In the Bedroom, Little Children). It is Field's first film since the release of Little Children in 2006, and the film stars Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine, Carol). The cast also includes Noémie Merlant (Portrait of a Lady on Fire), Nina Hoss (Homeland), Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover (The Empire Strikes Back), Allan Corduner (Yentl), and Mark Strong (Kingsman: The Secret Service, Shazam!).

The film, set in the international world of classical music, centers on Lydia Tár (Blanchett), widely considered one of the greatest living composers/conductors and the first-ever female chief conductor of a major German orchestra.

TÁR had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival in September 2022, where Blanchett won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. It had a limited theatrical release in the United States on October 7, 2022, before a wide release on October 28, 2022, by Focus Features.

THE GOOD

When I first heard about TÁR, let’s just say I circled the release date on my calendar. I was excited for a number of reasons. Obviously, I was excited because it was getting a lot of buzz from critics after its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival in September, but I was also excited because it is Todd Field’s first film in sixteen years! More than that, it is headlined by one of the greatest living actors in Cate Blanchett as the title character, who critics were saying gave a performance of the ages. All of that said, my expectations for this film were higher than high, but did it match those expectations? Keep reading to find out!

It most certainly did, and I won’t keep you waiting, the main reason it did was because of Cate Blanchett! This movie simply is a long and patient character study that follows Blanchett’s character, Lydia Tár, and her fall from grace. Lydia Tár is a very secretive and elusive person who is very unemotional and stoic, and Cate Blanchett just brings this character to life so much that by the end of the film you’ll be Google searching to see if Lydia Tár was actually a real person. I mean it is really insane how she just transformed into this woman.

I’ll touch on the screenplay very soon, but every word Cate Blanchett says in this film is pitch-perfect. She elevates every single sentence, every single word, and every single syllable. She truly doesn’t miss in this. To continue, Blanchett doesn’t hesitate in this film and she never breaks character. She is locked in from the beginning to the end and it was just fascinating to see. I really think it is one of the greatest performances I have ever seen and as much as I loved Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once (see my full review here), Cate Blanchett needs to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in this film. Yes, it would be her third Oscar win and Yeoh hasn’t won one yet, but there’s just not a better performance we are going to see this year.

Next with Todd Field, and I’ll be blunt, the man is fucking back! He is really a genius when it comes to filmmaking. Every scene in TÁR was just so meticulously and expertly crafted and there is just no denying that Field will get a Best Director nomination. When it comes to purely directing, I don’t know if I was as blown away by what he did as I was by say the Daniels for what they did in the aforementioned Everything Everywhere All at Once, but what Field does is still fantastic. He rests so much of what this film does and is on just having an actress of Blanchett’s caliber who has the utmost talent to be front and center here in the film and that is what makes the movie and his direction so brilliant if you’re asking me.

Continuing with Field, the screenplay we got from him here was just the definition of a masterpiece. It is just full of so many interesting and enticing themes such as cancel culture, but also the topics of power dynamics, manipulation, and also the idea of separating the art from the artist. Furthermore, the screenplay grapples with the idea that the perception of these people like Lydia Tár is going to change over time and it is not going to be in our hands. There is a tight insistence throughout the film of Lydia controlling her image and her perception only for it to be overtaken by a changing tide that is the way in which people view public figures like Tár.

All of that said, after watching TÁR, it is evident that Field really respects his audience’s intelligence and I love that. I mentioned how this film is a character study, but more than that it is an examination of the infamous cancel culture I just brought up in a much less sensationalized way. At the end of the day, there was a lot Todd Field was trying to say with his script, but my favorite thing about it was that he didn’t give us answers. Instead, he gives us this movie in a way that allows us to observe that phenomenon in a broader sense and take away our own ideas and I think that is what makes a script like his so masterful and compelling. The skill in his writing is that the details are there to pick up on and as previously mentioned, he trusts you to pick them out. There are just so many subtle clues he leaves throughout the film that allows you to fill in the blanks and I know I’ve said this a number of times now, but I just loved everything he did with TÁR and I’m pulling for him to win for Best Original Screenplay!

Now onto the technical side of things with TÁR, and with this being a movie that follows a renowned composer-conductor, I have to start by talking about the music. Now the film doesn’t have a true score here like most other films because Blanchett is conducting Gustav Mahler’s 5th Symphony which isn’t the original score and there also is not a ton of music in the movie other than that. That said, the film’s score nevertheless was composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir, who is most known for her score in the 2019 film Joker, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. That said, while there isn’t a ton of music in TÁR, there is still a score that is made up entirely of sound that plays in the movie, and after doing some research after seeing this, I have to say that what she did is very impressive. Now it probably won’t get a score nomination because most people will watch it and be confused but all of the orchestra scenes in this were breathtaking and those were composed by Guðnadóttir, so I just got to give a shout-out to this woman who is one of the most remarkable musicians we have working today.

To continue, while there is no better performance than that of Cate Blanchett in this film, that doesn’t take away from all the great supporting performances this movie gives us. I personally thought Nina Hoss was the best of the supporting bunch. Hoss is a German actress that I had never seen before, but she was amazing in this as Tár’s wife and concertmaster, Sharon. I don’t know if she had enough screen time to get herself nominated but you never know. Aside from Hoss, I loved Noémie Merlant, Julian Glover, and Mark Strong (especially his wig), and also shoutout to Adam Gopnik, staff writer for The New Yorker who plays himself in the film and was just awesome.

In conclusion, I am just obsessed with this film. It’s my number three on the year and I don’t see it going any lower than that. It’s a lock for a Best Picture nomination and I really don’t see anyone other than Cate Blanchett winning for Best Actress. She literally created a movie persona in Lydia Tár that will be remembered in the same way we remember characters like Daniel Plainview. Oh, and last but not least, the ending to this film is just phenomenal and it left me with the biggest grin on my face.

THE BAD

Alright, as you clearly know by now, I don’t have much bad to say about TÁR, but the main critique of the film from what I’ve seen that has been widespread among critics is that the movie is too pretentious and inaccessible. Now I’ll admit, the dialogue is super witty and tense, and also extremely intelligent, but I just was never turned away from the movie. Also, and I almost feel like I’m breaking the law or cheating by writing this review after only having seen the film once, but it’s almost impossible to have the tightest grasp on the film and completely understand everything at play in my opinion after just one watch. It’s just one of those movies where you are trying to wrap your head around what is going on, but that’s why I loved it so much to be perfectly honest and I can’t express to you how excited I am to check it out again whenever it hits streaming.

Aside from that, the second biggest complaint that I have seen from other critics is the film’s runtime. I don’t know, I know I’m in the minority on this one, but I just truly don’t care how long a movie is as long as it is well-edited like this one was. TÁR clocks in at 158 minutes which some people just won’t be able to overcome and that’s okay I guess, but I have to say you will be missing out. The movie really flew by and I did not want it to end. Also, and this is more of a warning, but the first three scenes in the film take up like 25 to 30 minutes but just know that all of those scenes, and truly all of the scenes in the film are critically important and the movie wouldn’t be the same without them. The movie is really built and defined by these long, extended conversations and the reason that it works and is riveting is because the dialogue is just so dense and the delivery of every line of dialogue from all the actors is just flawless.

THE VERDICT

Behind a career best performance from Cate Blanchett that is one of the most incredible performances I have ever seen, TÁR is a five-star film that is hands down one of 2022’s best. As impressive as Blanchett’s performance as Lydia Tár was, Todd Field’s direction and screenplay are right there with her. It is a patient, smart film that is really watchable despite it being a 2.5 hour long movie that consists largely of conversations about classical music.

Sure, some people may find it to be inaccessible because it’s a movie that offers more questions than answers, but I loved being able to engage with so many different ideas and topics that are prevalent in today’s society, most notably cancel culture.