TÁR

TÁR   **1/2

Todd Field

2022

IDEA:  World-renowned orchestra conductor Lydia Tár finds her career in jeopardy when scandals about her improprieties begin brewing.

BLURB:  Apparently women can abuse their positions of power, too. That’s the not-exactly revelatory thesis of TÁR, a well-acted and handsomely mounted but tautological character study. The film starts auspiciously; following an end credits sequence daringly placed at the offset, it sinuously builds an air of mystique and intrigue around the titular character and the insular, epicurean world of classical music in which she fancies herself a god. The more time we spend with Lydia - whom Cate Blanchett lends a slippery mixture of vivacious creative passion and smug, nonchalant imperiousness - the more her delusional, narcissistic tendencies seem to get entangled with her obvious intelligence, talent, and conviction. Field’s judgment to not judge Lydia, to resist demonizing, exalting, mocking, or excusing her or guiding us through how to feel about her fall from grace, is as provocative a statement as you’ll find in TÁR. Otherwise, the drama that leads to her inevitable career implosion is predictable and not particularly compelling, stretched thin over an egregiously bloated runtime filled with repetitive, ploddingly portentous scenes. And for a film concerned with music and the aural realm, the sound mix is perplexingly fallow. Watching Blanchett do her magisterial thing as a magisterial character is, more often than not, mesmerizing, but in a supreme irony, the grandiose Lydia could have used a grander showcase than what TÁR ends up offering.