Tar: Review - Muddled Character Study Lacking Both Substance and Style

Tar (2022)

Todd Field, the acclaimed director who many have claimed was missing in actions for the past decade and a half since his last film Little Children, came back to the spotlight last year with Tar which earned 6 Academy Award Nominations. While he is not a director I am familiar with I was interested in this movie none the less as the poster had the appearance of tense character study which starred one of the best actresses around today, Cate Blanchett. All of these expectations were shattered not long after I started the film and slowly ground down and smelted back into dust by the time the credits began to roll. That is not to say that there are not admirable things about this film but that the long runtime of flat cinematography and forced acting rendered all the good things into background noise to a train of nonsense barreling down the tracks.

The film's most apparent flaw is the lack of an interesting or engaging plot. Instead, the movie comes off as nothing more than a vehicle to display Cate’s acting prowess as most scenes revolve around her character either standing in a room alone or with a few other people who only ever get minimal lines of dialogue between standing and acting as a canvas for Cate's character to spew rhetoric at. Such an intense focus on Cate's character is not in that of itself bad, many films take this approach so as to reveal the layers of the character and the varying ways the story of the film impacts and changes them as it goes along. The problem with this movie is that Cate's character hardly changes at all aside from an abrupt about face in the third act which appears to come out of nowhere and without good reason other than the fact that the movie had to end at some point.

I found the dialogue in this film very off putting as it came off more as an attempt to convince the audience of the director's advanced knowledge of composers and orchestral music rather than the natural speech of people involved in this industry. Scene after scene of characters using confusing nomenclature only known to those well versed in the arena of orchestral music made it hard, as someone who lacks the knowledge of this world, to be able to relate to the characters. Again, a movie should not treat its audience as if they are dumb or incapable of understanding complex things but there are ways of doing this that do not feel as though it is just listing things which the audience does not know or even care about as they are not properly defined or given the proper context. When I was in University one of the best lessons I ever received was that the appearance of a good writer who knows what they are talking about is one who everyone can understand and not the person who uses phrases and language incomprehensible to the average person.

Beyond the cryptic dialogue Cate Blanchett's performance also suffered from what I have termed "Oscar Acting" which is where actors or actresses purposefully switch cadence in the middle of their speech so as to appear more natural when to me it comes across as forced and abnormal. Cate's performance is littered with instances of this where she will begin a sentence and briefly go on a tangent only to return to her original figure of speech. Doing this a few times in the movie could have been acceptable but the insistence on constantly speaking in this way became vexing as a viewer to watch not to mention it made it hard for me to believe Cate's performance as it came across as performative and thus prevented me from empathizing with her character as it never felt real.

The script does Cate no favours with a flat character arc that briefly and without good reason spikes to a peak in the third act. For much of the film Cate's character appears unemotional and devoid of empathy all the while those around her question her actions and deal with problems which she appears to pay no mind. Compounding the monotonous look at Blachett's character's life was the static cinematography and entire absence of interesting score. It is as if the film lacks any style and instead is a mechanical retelling of a fictious person's boring life. Worsening this whole mess was the director's insistence on utilizing long takes which have become the nectar of praise lately in Hollywood, specifically in action blockbusters. While these scenes are impressive from a technical perspective in that the actors must memorize an extensive amount of dialogue, hit their marks, and the camera operator must capture all of this at the appropriate time, all of these steps are only convincing to the viewer if it feels natural and not a mechanical order of operations being performed which is how it came across here. Plainly put, the movie is just not entertaining nor is the character study that rewarding as the lead performance is so rigid and uninviting and all captured in unconvincing fashion that the viewer pains to stay awake let alone pay attention to this mess.

My biggest problem with this film was how it treated the subject of suicide. In typical Hollywood conceited fashion, it is not the person who after experiencing much trauma and emotional distress that tragically decided to end their life that is the main focus of this film but rather it is Cate Blanchett's character who was one of the catalysts that motivated it who we are subjected to witnessing. It just screamed wow is me, as if it was saying how could these awful things that happened to other people hurt me to a higher degree. I would not have been shocked if in the third act when Cate's character finally begins to see the error of her ways if she had decided to sing Imagine on Instagram. I question what the point of this movie is as I do not see the reward in watching a woman who mistreats everyone around her and learns nothing from it aside from developing a deep a resentment of the world when they do not approve of her awful behaviour.

Furthermore, when Cate starts to act out of character toward the end of the film after the whirlwind her depreciable acts strewn up it felt abrupt which is strange for a movie with this long of a runtime. The problem is that we never see any cracks in her behaviour instead she goes from being completely unemotional for much of the movie, growing slightly concerned one night with the discussion about her online one night, and not long after she appears to be completely out of her mind jamming out on the accordion while ranting manically in her apartment after her neighbours asked her about the noise she was making. This all reached a crescendo of buffoonery when Cate's character tackled Mark Strong, who was forced to wear an awful wig in this movie, while he is conducting the orchestra she was intending on leading. She then gets up and proceeds to attempt to try and continue as if she had not just sacked Mark Strong five yards behind the woodwind section.

As someone who is not well versed in orchestral music or the inner workings of how music is performed in a group setting I was still angered by the way in which it was depicted in this film as less of a true art form and more as an avenue for people to flip their hair while waving their arms around. Speaking to the unserious way in which the movie dealt with what the life of a composer is like is the scene where Cate's character, while speaking to the players in her orchestra, begins to use a foreign accent while speaking English which she had not done before. No reason is given for this and it came across again as an arrogant and pretentious look at what being in charge of such a group of musicians would be like. There is a great scene in the recent film Annette, which I included on the left, where Simon Helberg breaks the fourth wall to speak directly to the audience between conducting an orchestra, not only did this scene utilize a long take but it also had an incredible amount of energy to it while also fleshing out the plot. Such style and substance were all lacking in this film.

The disrespect towards the arts reaches an apex during the climax of the film when Cate’s character is going to again be composing what appears to be a grand orchestra after she has been exiled from America for her past misdeeds. However, in a feign attempt at a rug pull the director slowly reveals that what first appeared to be her leading a classical band performing for a large venue is instead them playing the soundtrack of a film while it plays in front of an audience dressed in elaborate costumes. It is as if the movie saying that this is some failure on Cate’s part and that this form of art is less than that which she had been doing before. Perhaps it is also trying to convey that her ego knows no bounds in that she takes this job just as serious as her former title and sees just as much esteem in it, which perhaps is an interesting comment to make about her character, but given the arrogance of the rest of the film this struck me more as a degrading comment on the art form itself rather than a reflection of nature of Cate Blanchett's character.

While I have gone on at length about the negatives, I also want to discuss some of the things I appreciated in this film since I want to share good things but I also require myself to be honest which explains why I spent so much time criticizing the film. There are several small moments in the film which reveal interesting pieces of what make up Cate Blanchett's character, while I do not think they were utilized properly they are still worth mentioning. First, early in the film Cate's character states that she does not care for or read reviews yet right after this she gives her opinion of several composers and the merits of their musical prowess proving that her character is a hypocrite. Another part of the film that was noteworthy involving her character was when a colleague brings up March 8 which Cate does not recognize as being International Women's Day when earlier in the film she was labeled a champion for women's rights proving that while she publicly endorsed this cause she is not truly invested in it.

Perhaps the most relevant scene and what I assume would be the most discussed is the one in which Cate Blanchett's interrogates one of her students regarding cancel culture. While this is a hot button issue the scene itself is lacking in that it goes on for so long and is all captured in one shot that by the time the meat of their conversation occurs the audience is already drained such that the lukewarm criticisms Cate's character throws on cancel culture lack any real impact. What I found more interesting was how later in the film when Cate is discussing a similar topic about a composer's past misdeeds with an older colleague who dismisses that criticism which they both respond to by laughing while Cate's expression appears somewhat pained as if she is just placating him but does not share his opinion. This sheds some light on the earlier interaction where she criticized her student for parroting the opinions of others on social media in that Cate's character could be just as guilty of adopting the viewpoints of those around her such that neither has come to form their own opinions. One final note on this discussion, when Cate confronts her student she is seen doing it in a mostly empty auditorium but once it is posted online later by a student it becomes the catalyst which leads to her being exile which to me pointed to the way in which I thought was an interesting comment to make on the way small moments in the real world can explode into international discussions.

While I have already discussed the flat style of this movie there were a few instances where the director attempted to inject some style into the project with dream sequences which fragmentedly haunt Cate's character. What could have been a great break from the orderly approach to the rest of the film is instead a lackluster foray into terrible filmmaking as these scenes were so poorly done with atrocious special effects and random characters interjected into them that I was left feeling bewildered by how such ridiculous moments made their way into this movie which goes above and beyond to act serious. One other part in the film where the technical achievements were surely lacking was when Blanchett's character trips and falls hitting her head and the most ridiculously cartoonish sound effect played.

Tar is a film that never commits to interrogating any subject in depth and instead decides to hide behind a wall of rhetoric and cliched performances thus undermining any worthwhile message or discussion the movie was trying to convey. Lacking both style and substance Tar is a film whose best moments are hidden between vapid and elongated scenes that test the viewer's attention. I cannot recommend this film.

One last note on this film, the amazing actress Noémie Merlant makes an appearance as Blanchett's assistant who unfortunately is not given much screen time and is more of a punching bag for Cate to demonstrate her negligence for others on. I would be remiss to not recommend the amazing film Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), much in the style of a film like Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name (2017), this is a brilliant drama film about a brief forbidden love and the lasting impact it had on two women in 18th century France. Here is the trailer for Portrait of a Lady on Fire:

Instead of ending this review with the trailer for this film I thought I would include this interview from 60 Minutes with Yannik Nezet-Seguin, a conductor who is changing his approach not only to his job but also offering audience members a modern experience while ensuring the continuing legacy of classical music (Yannick Nézet-Séguin: The 60 Minutes Interview - CBS News).