Tár

''Tár'' (stylized as ''TÁR'') is a 2022 psychological drama film written and directed by Todd Field and starring Cate Blanchett. The film charts the downfall of fictional composer and conductor Lydia Tár. The supporting cast includes Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner, and Mark Strong.

It premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival in September 2022, where Blanchett won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. It had a limited theatrical release in the United States on October 7, 2022, before a wide release on October 28, by Focus Features. It received acclaim from critics, who lauded Blanchett's performance, Field's direction and screenplay, and its cinematography, editing, and sound design. Both the New York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association named it their best film of 2022, and it was deemed one of the year's best by the American Film Institute. At the 80th Golden Globe Awards, it received nominations for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. The film was named "Best Picture of the Year" by '' Vanity Fair'', ''The Atlantic'', ''Variety'', ''The Hollywood Reporter'', ''Entertainment Weekly'', and IndieWire's annual poll of 165 critics worldwide.

Despite the positive reviews, the film has grossed $5.6 million against a combined production and marketing budget of $35 million. Pre-release marketing for ''Tár'', along with the use of real-life critics like Adam Gopnik in the film speaking of the central character as a real person, left the impression that the film was a traditional biopic about an actual conductor and not a work of fiction.

Plot

Lydia Tár is a famous composer-conductor, and first female chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. In an interview at The New Yorker Festival, she promotes several new projects, including her upcoming live recording of Mahler's 5th Symphony. She relies on Francesca, her attentive personal assistant, and Sharon, her wife and concertmaster. Lydia has lunch with Eliot Kaplan, a conductor who manages a fellowship program she founded for aspiring women conductors; and talks about replacing her assistant conductor, Sebastian, presumably with Francesca, and filling an open cello position in the orchestra.

Later, Lydia guest teaches at the Juilliard School. She ridicules Max, a student, for lacking interest in conducting the classical masters due to identity politics, encouraging students to look past superficial differences to the music underneath. Max subsequently storms out.

Before returning to Berlin, Lydia receives Vita Sackville-West's novel '' Challenge'' from Krista Taylor, a former fellowship program member. Dream sequences and email interactions suggest Lydia groomed Krista into a sexually transactional relationship that later fell apart. Lydia blacklists Krista, ruining Krista's chances for a conducting career.

Before a blind audition for a new orchestra cellist, Lydia sees one hopeful, the Russian Olga, in the bathroom. Attracted to Olga, Lydia secures her favors, such as changing her scorecard to ensure a spot in the orchestra, and a soloist position in the companion piece to Mahler's 5th, Edward Elgar's cello concerto. As she intensively prepares for the Mahler's 5th recording, her relationships with Francesca and Sharon become strained, as both recognize her attraction to Olga.

Lydia informs Sebastian of his imminent replacement. Incensed, he indicates the orchestra is aware of her favoritism, and that it suggests abusive behavior towards young women. He speculates Francesca will be his replacement, implying an exchange of sexual favors. Unnerved by the accusations, Lydia plans to replace Sebastian with a different candidate.

Krista dies by suicide, leaving a note with serious allegations against Lydia. Lydia instructs Francesca to delete any emails from or about her. Lydia retains a lawyer as Krista's parents plan to sue her. Lydia is haunted by screaming women in the distance, nightmares, chronic pain, an increasing sensitivity to sound, and enigmatic scribbles resembling those Krista once made. Her only respites are Olga, as well as her and Sharon's adopted daughter, Petra.

While trying to write new compositions, she is continually disturbed and disgusted by her neighbor who cares for a dying mother. One day, after practicing Olga's solo, Lydia follows Olga home to an abandoned, dilapidated apartment complex. Scared by a dog, Lydia trips and injures herself. She lies to Sharon and her orchestra, claiming the injuries were from an assault. Without telling Lydia, Francesca resigns upon learning she will not be replacing Sebastian.

An edited, out-of-context video of Lydia's Juilliard class goes viral, and an article with accusations against her appears in the ''New York Post''. Protesters meet Lydia as she returns to New York to promote her book and attend a deposition for Krista's lawsuit. At the deposition, it is implied that Francesca has shared damning emails with the plaintiff. She takes Olga along, but Olga abandons her. Back home, Sharon leaves with Petra, furious with the allegations, but more so at Lydia's lack of communication or seeking her counsel as her spouse.

Lydia is removed as conductor. She sneaks into the live recording performance of Mahler's 5th and attacks her replacement, Eliot. Advised to lie low by her management agency, she returns to her lower-class childhood home on Staten Island, where it is revealed that her birth name is Linda Tarr. She watches a tape of her mentor Leonard Bernstein's first episode of Young People's Concerts, "What Does Music Mean". Her brother comes home and scolds her.

Sometime later, Lydia finds work conducting an orchestra in the Philippines. At a massage parlor/brothel, she picks her masseuse from a glass bowl. The escorts are staged and framed like her orchestra. One girl looks up into Lydia's eyes, her position the same as Olga's, and Lydia rushes outside to vomit. Lydia conducts her new orchestra in the score for the video game series ''Monster Hunter'' in front of an audience of cosplayers.

Cast

Production

It was announced in April 2021 that Cate Blanchett would star in and executive-produce the film, which would be written and directed by Todd Field. In a statement accompanying the teaser trailer in August 2022, Field said that he wrote the script specifically for Blanchett, and that if she had said no, " twould have never seen the light of day."

In September 2021, Nina Hoss and Noémie Merlant joined the cast, and Hildur Guðnadóttir became the film's composer.

Filming began in August 2021 in Berlin. In an interview with ''The Guardian'' in October, Mark Strong revealed that he had finished filming scenes for the film. In November, it was reported that Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner and Sylvia Flote had joined the cast. (Kauer is a British-German classical cellist who studied at the Royal Academy of Music.) All diegetic music was recorded live on-set, including Blanchett's piano playing, Kauer's cello, and the Dresden Philharmonic's performances.

Release

''Tár'' premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2022, and had its first North American screening at the Telluride Film Festival on September 3, 2022. It had a limited theatrical release on October 7, 2022, then expanded to wide release on October 28.

The film was released for VOD on November 15, 2022, and on Blu-ray, DVD and 4K UHD on December 20, 2022, by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.

Music

A concept album was released on October 21, 2022, featuring Guðnadóttir's score with the London Contemporary Orchestra conducted by Robert Ames, as well as a rehearsal of Gustav Mahler's fifth symphony with Blanchett conducting the Dresden Philharmonic. Cellist Sophie Kauer is also heard on the album playing Elgar's Cello Concerto, backed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Natalie Murray Beale. For the week ending November 5, 2022, the Tár concept album topped ''Billboard'' magazine's Traditional Classical Albums at number one, ahead of albums by the actual Berlin Philharmonic.

John Mauceri served as consultant to Field's script, specifically helping inform the tenor and accuracy of Lydia Tár's comments on classical music and musicians.

Reception

Box office

In the United States and Canada, ''Tár'' made $158,620 from four theaters in its opening weekend. The $39,655 per-screen average was the second highest of 2022 for a limited release. It its second weekend the film made $330,030 from 36 theaters. In its third weekend it made $500,035 from 141 theaters. Expanding to 1,087 theaters in its fourth weekend, it made $1.02 million, finishing 10th. In its second of wide release, it made $729,605 (marking a drop of 30%). ''Variety'' attributed these results to the general public showing the early stages of refusal to see and support prestige films in theaters in a moviegoing environment altered by the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the film's subject matter of "sexual harassment in the world of classical music" possibly alienating audiences from seeing it, despite Cate Blanchett being the main draw.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, 90% of 258 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's consensus reads, "Led by the soaring melody of Cate Blanchett's note-perfect performance, ''Tár'' riffs brilliantly on the discordant side of fame-fueled power." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 91 out of 100, based on 49 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

A. O. Scott of ''The New York Times'' lauded Field's measured handling of the story and Blanchett's portrayal, concluding that the film "doesn't so much smash a glass ceiling as dissolve it by creative fiat" and "plants itself in a tawdry and contentious zone of contemporary discourse". In ''Variety'', Owen Gleiberman said that Field "enmeshes us in a tautly unfolding narrative of quiet duplicity, corporate intrigue, and—ultimately—erotic obsession" in such an organic fashion "that for a while you don't even realize you're watching a 'story' ".

Justin Chang for the ''Los Angeles Times'' regarded the film as "both a superb character study and a highly persuasive piece of world building", stating that the director's "storytelling draws no artificial distinction between the big and the small, the important and the mundane; everything we see and hear matters". Reviewing the film for ''The Hollywood Reporter'', David Rooney wrote: "''Tár'' marks yet another career peak for Blanchett—many are likely to argue her greatest—and a fervent reason to hope it's not 16 more years before Field gives us another feature. It's a work of genius."

Richard Brody in ''The New Yorker'' describes ''Tár'' as "a regressive film that takes bitter aim at so-called cancel culture and lampoons so-called identity politics" and laments Field's "absence of style" in filming the music. He accuses the film of "conservative button-pushing" with a regressive, conservative and narrow aesthetic, failing to achieve dramatic unity.

End of the Year lists

The film appeared on a number of critics' top film lists of the best films of 2022:  

Accolades

Notes

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tar
2022 drama films
2022 films
2022 independent films
2022 LGBT-related films
2020s American films
2020s English-language films
2020s German films
2020s psychological drama films
American LGBT-related films
American psychological drama films
English-language German films
Films about classical music and musicians
Films about sexual harassment
Films directed by Todd Field
Films impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic
Films scored by Hildur Guðnadóttir
Films set in Berlin
Films shot in Berlin
Focus Features films
German LGBT-related films
German psychological drama films
Lesbian-related films
LGBT-related drama films
Universal Pictures films