Tar (2022)

Director: Todd Field

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss

Set in the international world of Western classical music, the film centers on Lydia Tár, widely considered one of the greatest living composer-conductors and the very first female director of a major German orchestra.

‘Tar’ has such a good, believable script that I mistakenly believed this to be based on fact. It is purely fictional, though.

Cate Blanchett stars as the titulur ‘Tar’. She is a conductor with many great achievements. She is also a Lesbian, and is married to Sharon (Nina Hoss). Much of the film centers on the world of classical music, and if you’re not studying (classical) music – or have – then much of the dialogue will just be mumbo jumbo with no meaning whatsoever – as it was for me. ‘Tar’ can therefore be categorized as ‘Special Interest’, and will not have a wide appeal. Those not interested in classical music at all, will no doubt lose interest in the film within the first half an hour – as I did.

There’s a lot of talk here. I mean, plenty of dialogue – much of which didn’t interest me in the least. And this continued for at least the first half of the movie before anything of significance happened. I listen to classical music every now and then, but I don’t have enough appreciation for the genre. Therefore, I found the film boring.

Even when things started going wrong for Tar, it was still boring. ‘Tar’ does have a good script, serves as excellent character study, and boasts a fantastic performance by Cate Blanchett, but this was nevertheless a tedious watch. The film is way overlong and – due to the film’s premise – I constantly found my attention drifting away from the movie; as one generally does when bored. This is not a film I can recommend, unless you’re into classical music…

It’s no surprise then that the film performed poorly at the box office. What did they expect anyway? Apart from the subject matter, the film has a runtime of almost 3 hours! Yawn! The film only earned $13.9 million on a $35 million budget.

‘Tar’ received universal acclaim from critics (uhm, yes, once again critics praised a film that was destined to be a box office flop…). The film received 297 award nominations, winning 59 (so far). It received 6 Oscar nominations for Best Leading Actress, Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Directing, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing).

Would I watch it again? Yawn, what?