Tar

Tar

Starring Cate Blanchett, Noemie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Sophie Kauer

Directed by Todd Field

There's numerous times people talk about meeting their favorite celebrities and they turn out to be major D-bags, thinking they have the whole world in their hands due to how rich and famous they are. Then when you see these former celebrities fall from grace, you get a smug sense of satisfaction knowing that their own hubris brought them down to the "commoner" level once again, finding some sort of cosmic justice through it all. Yet there's others who made names for themselves and are actually good people, but those are few and far between - what is it about celebrity and wealth that turns someone into a narcissist? Is it the outer influences or were they always inherently that way, but now they're given a bigger bullhorn to announce it?

Lydia Tar (Cate Blanchett) is a world famous composer and conductor, who's accomplishments could fill an encyclopedia. She is a true conductor in that she commands everyone and anyone around her, focusing on herself and her needs over the needs of anyone around her, including her long-suffering wife and concertmaster Sharon (Nina Hoss). She treats her assistant Francesca (Noemie Merlant) like a lesser Siri, and the only real emotion she shows is toward her and Sharon's young daughter. She is perfection personified, and as such she finds herself above the rules of normal people, not just living in another home apart from her wife, but having numerous affairs with other women, one of which killed herself after, beginning the dominoes falling that threatens to end Lydia's career and bring her down from space to earth in shattering time.

It's been sixteen years since Todd Field directed a film (his last was "Little Children, which earned three Academy Awards including Best Actress for Kate Winslet), and "Tar" proves the old adage: quality over quantity. You can see the careful, meticulous work he incorporated into the project, providing two and a half hours of a woman's fall from grace in spectacular fashion. Also like "Little Children," Field has a knack for choosing a strong female actress to hold the line, and Cate Blanchett is all but assured another Oscar statuette for her efforts.

The film opens with an interview with Lydia Tar where the interviewer lists her accomplishments that span almost five minutes of runtime, so you know that she has nowhere to go but down. Even the most humble person would find their ego inflated with the laundry list of accolades Lydia Tar has received, so it's almost forgivable that she's such a tool to everyone around her. She berates a Julliard student for not liking Bach because he was a rich white man, and she treats her assistant like an afterthought. She shows little love to her wife and instead prowls the younger women in her life, including an up-and-coming cellist that she goes out her way for, to the detriment of better players around her. Tar is self-serving and there's no room for anyone else in her life but herself - which could prove to be her own undoing.

Cate Blanchett gives a commanding performance as Lydia Tar, as she is easily both the antagonist and protagonist of her own tale. She is villainous in the way she treats others, but still comes across as sympathetic to a degree - a talent that only Blanchett could tightrope walk. While other actresses would've come across as too evil for their own good, Blanchett still delivers thoughtful work in the midst of her heavy-handed criticisms. Her standout moment is when she berates the Julliard student in one continuous take more akin to a stage play than a cinematic moment, and it'll leave your jaw on the floor due to the impeccable performance. Her commanding presence permeates throughout the runtime, however, and there's never a dull moment as her greatest asset becomes her biggest liability: noise.

As a conductor she has to direct her orchestra to her whim, and has to always be attune to the noises around her, finding out who's flat, who's soft, and who's overbearing. This talent also affects her real life, as she's haunted by noises that resound like a crashing cymbal - be it a metronome or a door knock, all the audio is elevated to soul-moving moments. Much like she conducts the orchestra, Field conducts the viewer to follow the flow of the narrative through the noise cues that clue us in on the growing forbearance of our hapless single-minded narrator.

Essentially a one-woman play with supporting characters who only serve as her backup singers, "Tar" is a faux biopic about a woman's fall from grace as she becomes a predator, seeking out what she wants and stopping at nothing to get it, even though it leaves a wasteland of despair in her wake. As the curtain begins to close around her, however, she's unwilling to accept that it's curtain call for her, hanging on to any last string of power that she possesses until the very end. Cate Blanchett has always been a tour-de-force, but this might be her best work yet, one that's as unforgettable as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

The Score: A+