Renowned musician Lydia Tár is days away from recording the symphony that will elevate her career. However, Lydia's elaborate facade begins to unravel, revealing dirty secrets and the corrosive nature of power.
- Released:
- Runtime: 158 minutes
- Genre: Drama, Music
- Stars: Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant, Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner, Sylvia Flote, Vincent Riotta, Sam Douglas, Lucie Pohl, Vivian Full, Lee Sellars, Christoph Tomanek, Frank Röth, Diana Birenytė, André Röhner, Jessica Hansen, Murali Perumal, Sydney Lemmon, Ryan Reynolds
- Director: Todd Field
Comments
- bobhull-41354 - 19 May 2024
Over-rated, disjointed bore
My complaint has nothing to do with the performances but rather with a completely disjointed and boring story. There were so many arcs that seem to go nowhere and that had nothing to do with the actual outcome of the story that it trumped what are actually some pretty good performances. Those who have seen the movie already will understand these questions...was this a story about a schizophrenic? Was it a story about someone who had dreams that helped derail them? They were just so many elements that just hung there with no explanation and seemingly no point. This was nothing short of a massive disappointment. - gus-swan - 22 January 2024
Deserving of a standing ovation
Tár tánked at the box office, probably not helped by its being described widely and reductively as a move about cancel culture. There is so much more going on here, a lot of it under the surface to start, but gradually, deliciously, unsettlingly making its presence felt as the film progresses. Front and centre is Blanchett giving an astonishing, bravura performance as a brilliant, neurotic figure at the peak of her profession but staring into the abyss. Nothing much happens in the first hour as she glides between New York and Berlin from smart hotel suites to her achingly cool bare concrete-walled Berlin apartment. We see a woman in total control, with a Neitzschen sense of her own heroically realised and unfettered self. Except its not long before we start to percieve the paper peel from the edges, at first hidden from view in airplane toilets or her solitary, insomniacal trips to the fridge to explore its strange whine. The movie is, or at least starts, with antiseptic, frankly gorgeous pristine art direction, but feels entirely real from the outset. It's Blanchett and Field's triumph that Lydia appears not just plausible but inevitable in her existence. But from there the film pivots via unease to psychological horror and tragicomedy, without missing a beat. The film's coda has been much discussed and while some see it as a misstep, i think of as both coup de grace and punchilne to what turns out to have been the most divine scherzo.
