Tár

Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett in typically imperious form), the complex protagonist of Todd Field’s riveting melodrama, is many things. She’s the first woman conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, she’s a rare EGOT winner, she’s impeccably tailored. But for all that talent and success, she’s also hampered by those oh-so-human foibles that have afflicted other great (read male) geniuses. She’s an ego-maniac, she’s a bully, she likes to chase women half her age and she’s about to get her comeuppance. 

Parallels between Lydia’s inappropriate behaviour and the Hollywood #MeToo movement are clear, but Field’s choice of a queer woman as the film’s power-mad preditor makes what would be a predictable downfall narrative all the more spiky and compelling. The film’s elliptical structure, which puts Lydia’s chief impropriety off-screen, and its strict adherence to her point-of-view, add to the ambiguity as to how we’re meant to feel about our charismatic but often monstrous anti-hero. 

Enablers and sycophants abound in Lydia’s inner circle. The only character to have her measure seems to be the orchestra’s first violinist, Sharon (Nina Hoss), who’s also the maestro's wife (more muddling of the personal and the professional). The pair are raising a daughter together, whom Lydia is fiercely protective of, and the film would have benefited from more of Hoss’s icy side-eye. This is Blanchett’s show, though. Like the character she's playing, she sucks up all available oxygen. It’s a testament to her tour-de-force performance that you might even feel a few pangs of sympathy as Lydia's myriad offences come home to roost.