Cate Blanchett has created the most indelible movie character this year.
It’s also an environment that, for its outward veneer of cosmopolitan civility, roils with political scheming, sexual power plays and brazen ambition. As Lydia goes about her days — meeting with a dilettante-ish patron , being interviewed by a star-struck journalist, leading a master class at Juilliard — her facade never cracks.
That something is more interior, more chaotic and in many ways more disturbing, and it’s exquisitely limned by Field, who doles out information with tensely judicious restraint. No sooner are we ensconced in the soothing world that Lydia edgily inhabits than we discover that all those nervous twitches and superstitions aren’t the mannerisms of an egocentric artist.
This makes “Tár” sound grim, which it isn’t. Field has made a film about exploitation and self-loathing and compulsion, but with an extravagant eye for beauty and surface polish that makes it deeply pleasurable to watch. It would be enjoyable enough simply to behold Blanchett have her way with a role that she slips on with the grace and familiarity of one of Lydia’s bespoke suits.
, who’s also name-checked by Lydia — a choice that emphasizes Lydia’s own hypersensitivity to the ambient sounds that constantly threaten to engulf her.Then there’s the humor, which is so sly that it seems to operate on a frequency all its own. That Nan Talese line, for example, is both tonally perfect and hilarious, as are tossed-off asides about, NPR and the fact that Lydia’s dazzled young interviewer went to Smith.
By far “Tár’s” best joke is saved for last, when Field speeds up the metronome and sends Lydia on a dizzying spiral that takes her far from Berlin, in a place where personal, professional and aesthetic reckoning land like a dissonant chord. The moral of the story seems simple enough: Keep it in your pants, boys and girls, lest you wind up in what could easily pass for sheer hell.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Review: Cate Blanchett should dust off her Oscar mantel for ‘TÁR’Todd Field's character study of a woman caught up in cancel culture doesn't hold up entirely for its three-hour running time but it's held together by Blanchett's performance.
Read more »
In 'Tár,' Cate Blanchett portrays a genius conductor who's off tempo in a changing worldTodd Field's 'Tár' is complicated and difficult. Much like its protagonist, says film critic Sean Burns:
Read more »
What to watch: Cate Blanchett is a mesmerizing force in ‘Tar’Also worth seeing: New take on “All Quiet on the Western Front,’ old-school horror in ‘Werewolf By Night.’
Read more »
Unpacking the Shocking, Hilarious Ending of Cate Blanchett’s ‘TÁR’The new film, starring Blanchett as a maestro in the throes of chaos, has one of the most unusual, strangely funny finales of any movie this year. We break it all down for you.
Read more »
Review: In ‘Tár,’ Cate Blanchett wields a mean baton in one of the best movies of the yearMovie review: An icy-hot paradox of a film, and one of the year’s peak achievements, writer-director Todd Field’s “Tár” casts a gimlet eye on a fictional American orchestra conductor and composer.
Read more »
“Tár,” Reviewed: Regressive Ideas to Match Regressive Aesthetics“Tár,” starring Cate Blanchett, is “a regressive film that takes bitter aim at so-called cancel culture and lampoons so-called identity politics,” tnyfrontrow writes.
Read more »