Tar

Renowned musician ,Lydia Tar is days away from recording the symphony that will elevate her career. When all elements seem to conspire against her, Lydia's adopted daughter Petra becomes an integral emotional support for her struggling mother.

It is not surprising that this film is tanking at the box office since it is much too long and slow paced for the average movie. Indeed parts of it, like the agonizingly protracted opening scene where a New Yorker magazine music critic interviews the title character about her classical music esthetics, seem designed by writer/director, Tod Field as a boredom experiment wherein if you can survive it without running and screaming into the night out of sheer and utter ennui then you are worthy to see the rest of his masterpiece.

Thing is, though, that a lot of this film does approach, if not encroach upon, masterpiece territory. Certain scenes, like Lydia Tar's bleak Staten Island homecoming where she summons the spirit of her mentor Leonard Bernstein in an effort to recapture the humanistic values she has lost, are genuinely heartbreaking. And the sequences that deal with Lydia's manipulation of her acolytes are difficult to watch as we see how artistic power feels even more corruptible, somehow, than the political kind, perhaps because it is a profanation of a purer space. And I think we can all agree that Cate Blanchett is a great actress! The same goes for Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant and Sophie Cauer, who play various members of her entourage/victims.

At first,it disappointed me. It is mysterious, boring and lethargic. Until i realized that what the filmmakers actually wanted.Cate Blanchett is great and deserves praise. It is the slowest of slow burns and does not hold your hand. Its narrative omits key elements of scenes that other directors emphasize. This was a stumbling block for me. It was about halfway through the movie when I realized what was happening. I believe you will enjoy the movie more if you know what it is about. The movie intentionally doesn't show the important elements of the scene or the relationships between the characters. Like putting together the puzzle of who Lydia Tar really is, you'll have to find out for yourself. Here's a simple unrelated example:

Bill looked at the smoke rising from the frying pan. Bill rubbed his nose five times and was drinking coffee at Station 271 when he received a call from Ernest. If the above two sentences had been in the book, it would have been missing a major plot point that other writers would have added. First, there was a fire in Bill's kitchen. He called the fire department. The fire may have been serious because he had to evacuate. Who is Ernest if you haven't met this character yet? Why was Bill rubbing his nose so hard? Is it a tick,or a nervous habit?

That's tar. This gives you all the elements between the lines and allows you to find X directly. Once I realized that this was the film's dominant cinematic approach, it became much more enjoyable and interesting. It's very worth your time if you put in the effort.