TÁR the Todd Field film is a scandalous, scary, thriller, film noir, film built for lovers of all kinds of music, and a pleaser for Art House audiences and audiences that love to snicker at Art House audiences. TÁR starts out in what appears to be a a High Brow Self Serving long-form interview documentary. It finishes in what appears to be a companion piece to Apocalypse Now. How can that be? I am not sure at this point. I will need to re-watch TÁR about 10 more times to figure out how this is pulled off. But it is!
TÁR sucks you into multiple storylines – all are compelling and utterly believable. Some storylines appear to be for elite’s and lovers of the arcane. In the end nothing is what it seems. The storylines seem to be built for the lovers of High Art to embrace and acknowledge yet simplified for us commoners to understand and enjoy. Other storylines are as common as the Sun rising. Put simply, you can run but you cannot hide. TÁR will likely force you to deal with a wide gamut of emotions. For me they are hard to explain and better left unsaid. However, I would love to talk with you about them after you have seen the film.
The center of TÁR is eight time Academy Award Nominee (two time Winner) Cate Blanchette. As most know, Blanchette is a chameleon. There is hardly a persona, emotion, behavior, accent, or language Blanchette cannot present with perfection. She and Meryl Streep are as good as it gets on this front.
While Blanchette’s performance is one for the ages; the script, production values, performance of supporting actors, cinematography, and music score are A-List kind of works.
