reading your review of Tar made me look up Little Children. you seem to have liked it, Scott, (you gave it a B), but the plot summary of it really makes it sound hollow.
Very excited for both these movies, though I don't know how anything can live up to The Handmaiden. That film is equally parts excellent and nearly impossible to recommend without giving a lot of caveats. ("Hey coworker! I think you'd really enjoy this movie with explicit lesbian sex scenes, BDSM, and grooming! It's really good!")
You don’t really address my primary reservation about TÁR (which I liked, albeit not as much as you did): Why make this story about a woman when (EDIT: some of) the behavior depicted is exclusive to men? You correctly note that Field and Blanchett make Lydia Tár such a complex character that the film avoids being merely a Disclosure-esque provocation, but that in and of itself doesn’t explain the decision to gender-flip in the first place. What does that achieve? (I’m not saying there are no good answers—have one myself. Just curious about how you see it.)
Wow, Tar, fantastic. Can’t imagine anything bumping that out of my #1 spot for the year. A year when Everything Everywhere All At Once was released!
Can we get a spoiler discussion space for Tar? There’s so much to unpack here, especially since, praise be, Field trusts us enough to hint, allude, and gesture to things without spelling them out.
"Blanchett’s aristocratic air" indeed. It's what helps make Blanchett so utterly convincing in this role. Don't all actors pick up some residue (good or bad) from their previous roles that just becomes part of their screen persona?
Was this a case of expectation peril? Just watched this today, and contrary to just about every critic out there, I found Tar to be lacking. Mostly because:
1) "Field implies persuasively that Lydia’s flaws cannot be disentangled from her brilliance." The key word there is implies...I so dearly wish it wasn't implied but explicated. Shown! I don't need Voldemort-level of blood drinking here, but wouldn't it have been great to see the positive side effects of Lydia's depravity in her conducting? Olga already gave her a pointer on her composition -- how about if her puppy love fueled an all-night session of songwriting? All I saw from Lydia's infatuation of Olga was her getting lost and hurt in what looked like a The Wire-Baltimorean project. (Also, I was reminded of Parasite a bit!) That sequence did have a nice metaphorical payoff, too -- the monster within also is now the monster outside (Lydia did look pretty bad from that fall).
2) As much as I respect Todd Field as a filmmaker, there were moments when I wanted to nudge him a little..."We're here, you know? Your audience." I appreciate the verisimilitude of classical music and all that it entails, but after the third name drop of someone I have no clue about, I feel even further pushed away from the material. Again, I'm not talking about EI5 here, just...not so much information. One of my favorite scenes from the movie is the scene between Lydia and the Julliard student (Max?). Perfect level of information + insight.
3) Mark Strong's wig needs its own Twitter feed.
4) If classical music isn't your thing but you are still hankering for a movie that stars Cate Blanchett in a riveting performance where she plays an entitled individual deserving of comeuppance:
Decision to Leave sounds fantastic.
reading your review of Tar made me look up Little Children. you seem to have liked it, Scott, (you gave it a B), but the plot summary of it really makes it sound hollow.
Very excited for both these movies, though I don't know how anything can live up to The Handmaiden. That film is equally parts excellent and nearly impossible to recommend without giving a lot of caveats. ("Hey coworker! I think you'd really enjoy this movie with explicit lesbian sex scenes, BDSM, and grooming! It's really good!")
You don’t really address my primary reservation about TÁR (which I liked, albeit not as much as you did): Why make this story about a woman when (EDIT: some of) the behavior depicted is exclusive to men? You correctly note that Field and Blanchett make Lydia Tár such a complex character that the film avoids being merely a Disclosure-esque provocation, but that in and of itself doesn’t explain the decision to gender-flip in the first place. What does that achieve? (I’m not saying there are no good answers—have one myself. Just curious about how you see it.)
Wow, Tar, fantastic. Can’t imagine anything bumping that out of my #1 spot for the year. A year when Everything Everywhere All At Once was released!
Can we get a spoiler discussion space for Tar? There’s so much to unpack here, especially since, praise be, Field trusts us enough to hint, allude, and gesture to things without spelling them out.
"Blanchett’s aristocratic air" indeed. It's what helps make Blanchett so utterly convincing in this role. Don't all actors pick up some residue (good or bad) from their previous roles that just becomes part of their screen persona?
Was this a case of expectation peril? Just watched this today, and contrary to just about every critic out there, I found Tar to be lacking. Mostly because:
1) "Field implies persuasively that Lydia’s flaws cannot be disentangled from her brilliance." The key word there is implies...I so dearly wish it wasn't implied but explicated. Shown! I don't need Voldemort-level of blood drinking here, but wouldn't it have been great to see the positive side effects of Lydia's depravity in her conducting? Olga already gave her a pointer on her composition -- how about if her puppy love fueled an all-night session of songwriting? All I saw from Lydia's infatuation of Olga was her getting lost and hurt in what looked like a The Wire-Baltimorean project. (Also, I was reminded of Parasite a bit!) That sequence did have a nice metaphorical payoff, too -- the monster within also is now the monster outside (Lydia did look pretty bad from that fall).
2) As much as I respect Todd Field as a filmmaker, there were moments when I wanted to nudge him a little..."We're here, you know? Your audience." I appreciate the verisimilitude of classical music and all that it entails, but after the third name drop of someone I have no clue about, I feel even further pushed away from the material. Again, I'm not talking about EI5 here, just...not so much information. One of my favorite scenes from the movie is the scene between Lydia and the Julliard student (Max?). Perfect level of information + insight.
3) Mark Strong's wig needs its own Twitter feed.
4) If classical music isn't your thing but you are still hankering for a movie that stars Cate Blanchett in a riveting performance where she plays an entitled individual deserving of comeuppance:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2334873/
Runs about an hour less and does a pretty good job. Also, written and directed by a guy who is now fully cancelled. 🙃