#REVIEW: TÁR

Review by Amanda Gilmore for Mr. Will Wong

Cate Blanchett gives an earth-shattering performance as world-renowned Composer-Conductor Lydia Tár in Todd Field’s spellbinding latest. It follows Lydia at the top of her career: an Autobiography is being released and she’s the first female Chief Conductor of a prestigious Berlin Orchestra. Throughout her career, she’s been conducting each of Gustav Mahler’s cycles of symphonies. It’s in Berlin that she will complete them with Symphony No. 5. And during the rehearsal process, her carefully-orchestrated life will fall apart.

Field’s brilliant use of exposition introduces us to Lydia through an interview with The New Yorker. The Interviewer reads out the Conductor’s impressive accomplishments, flattering her with admiring questions. With each answer, she appears to be humble and lives for the art, not the glory. We root for her because she has risen through the ranks on hard work and merit to become the master of her craft. However, Lydia’s polished façade begins to tarnish thanks to Field’s perfect, slow-burn, pacing and Blanchett’s tour-de-force performance.

Field slowly exposes the woman for who she really is. It starts with Lydia’s often harsh interactions with her Assistant Francesca (a captivating Noémie Merlant) and colleague Elliot (Mark Strong). Even then, it can be written-off as an Artist’s self-important superiority. However, we start becoming skeptical of her in one mesmerizing scene, shot in one take, where Lydia gives a lecture to a class of conducting students at Juilliard. Additionally, it’s at this moment where Field’s timely commentary comes through. When Lydia speaks of Bach, a student states he refuses to conduct his pieces due to Bach’s documented misogyny. Lydia cruelly rips the student’s perspective apart telling him he’s limiting himself if he can’t separate the Art from the Artist.

The significance of her statement is paramount once we learn that Lydia’s prior student, Krista Taylor (Sylvia Flote), commits suicide. Lydia suspiciously erases all communications she had involving Krista’s name. Here we learn she’s blacklisted her former student from receiving any work. Yet, all her cover-up efforts don’t prevent her past from catching up to her. She becomes accused of years of abuse in power, grooming and sexual assault. Field eliminates doubt but shows Lydia’s fixation with a Cellist in the orchestra, Olga (Sophie Kauer).

Although Tár’s timely themes will be a hot topic of conversation, the story extends beyond just this. It’s about someone whose sinister past has become exposed, damaging their reputation. Therefore, it’s a dark Character Study about someone facing an existential crisis. The chameleon-like Blanchett is the only Actor who could pull off the daunting task of performing Lydia. It’s a character who goes from controlled to unhinged, calm to stressed, and back again. The performance of a lifetime.

Tár has arrived during a time of ‘wokeness’ and Cancel Culture. And we have all had, and continue, to ask ourselves the same questions. Can we really separate the Art from the Artist, and should we? Field asks many complex questions but never gives answers. Allowing us, the audience, to have discussions about Cancel Culture and Art. This makes for an enthralling and essential viewing experience. Additionally, it holds yet another outstanding Score by Hildur Guðnadóttir that feels like it’s Lydia’s subconscious haunting her.

Focus Features and Universal Pictures Canada release Tár as follows:

 October, 14, 2022 in Toronto, and Vancouver and Montreal on October, 21, 2022.