'Tár' review: Cate Blanchett conducts one hell of a symphony

Adam Graham

Detroit News Film Critic

An exacting study of art, genius, ego, power and control, "Tár" is a mammoth conception, brought to life by writer-director Todd Field and star Cate Blanchett.

It's only Field's third movie, and his first since "Little Children" in 2006. And yet it carries the weight of a work by a master filmmaker, someone who has studied with the greats (Field had a role in Stanley Kubrick's final film, "Eyes Wide Shut," in 1999) and now makes big, calculated, authoritative moves all his own.

And there's no "Tár" without Cate Blanchett. The 53-year-old gives a titanic lead performance in the film as Lydia Tár, a world-famous classical composer and EGOT winner whose world is crumbling around her, at first slowly and then all at once.

Blanchett's work in the film is so seamless that she becomes Tár — in addition to convincingly conducting orchestras, she speaks three languages in the film, and carries herself with the presence of a Master of the Universe — and it will take a force of nature to stop her from gobbling up every acting statue in sight this coming awards season.

The film opens, after an up-front credits sequence, with Tár being celebrated at a New Yorker reception, her interviewer running through her laundry list of accomplishments like a checklist of modern greatness. To sum up: she's done it all and walks on water. And the world she's constructed around herself is rarified: a posh residence in Berlin, private jets, meetings with high-profile acquaintances, worldwide acclaim. She's the Meryl Streep of classical music, and she probably leaves Ms. Streep on read.

Tár is an aggressively Type A personality, and Field frames her within a Type A world: spacious and luxurious, with plenty of room to stretch out. Scenes aren't rushed and are allowed to breathe, and we get to spend time with Tár at home with her wife Sharon (Nina Hoss) and her adopted daughter Petra (Mila Bogojevic) as well as at work. We see how she walks, how she handles others and how she can make a room stand at attention with a simple glance. She's not someone who is often, if ever, questioned.

Until she is. When a young pupil with ties back to Tár takes her own life, small things begin to unravel, and then bigger ones. This acquaintance and her relationship to Tár points to larger questions about Tár and her history of sexual conduct, especially with young talent, and the crystalline world she's built around herself starts to crack. She just so happens to be spending a lot of time with a young Russian cellist, Olga (Sophie Kauer) — is the pattern repeating itself? And how long before her lifestyle catches up with her?

Field is very much turning his focus on the nebulous world of "cancel culture," and he is not letting Tár off the hook nor is he casting her in any sort of sympathetic light. He's simply telling her story, and thereby that of others who have been swallowed up in the tidal wave of public excommunication, and examining what that means to a person inside the bubble and how it plays out in the world around them.

"Tár" is a stark, shattering work but there's a lot of meat on the bone, and Field gives viewers plenty to chew on. It's not a one woman show or a performance-based film where the performance stands apart from everything else, it's a movie where the lead performance enriches and enhances the story that is being told and helps brings everything else to life. "Tár" is both Field and Blanchett's orchestra, and they both get to share the title of maestro.

Bravo, it's quite a show.

agraham@detroitnews.com

@grahamorama

'Tár'

GRADE: A-

Rated R: for some language and brief nudity

Running time: 158 minutes

In theaters

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