TÁR

Focus Features | Release Date: October 7, 2022

7.3	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 180 Ratings

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User Reviews

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dq72Feb 5, 2023

I couldn’t sit through this talky, enamored with itself, no plot movie. If there was a plot it wasn’t happening for over half the movie where you see the main character go from scene to scene and just talk, talk, talk. Nothing happens

4 of 4 users found this helpful40

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Film123Jan 28, 2023

I think a tedious movie, plays on an almost intellectual snobbishness to get points across, perhaps it's a part of the classical music tradition, but difficult to sit through in a theatre

4 of 4 users found this helpful40

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Stranger14Mar 4, 2023

Quite literally the single worst experience of my entire life. Out of the 2 and a half hour playtime maybe 40 minutes was at all relevant to the story and the rest was just completely irrelevant bs

2 of 2 users found this helpful20

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GlintspearApr 1, 2023

I'm sorry to say, I didn't even find Cate Blanchett's performance very good. I found her studied and wooden, and along with the entire cast, completely lacking in chemistry. The sound, cinematography, and editing were poor, creating even moreI'm sorry to say, I didn't even find Cate Blanchett's performance very good. I found her studied and wooden, and along with the entire cast, completely lacking in chemistry. The sound, cinematography, and editing were poor, creating even more distance and alienation. Whether intended or not, it did not work.
The narrative strands were a mess; the dialogue was stilted and unrealistic.
I am a classical musician and listen exclusively to classical music, and I can assure you that this is not what classical musicians are like or how they talk.
Also, I couldn't work out if some of the over-the-top scenes of diversity and inclusion were parodies or serious. Almost everything was utterly unrealistic and removed from reality.
It was also profoundly pretentious, as though the writer was trying to garner approval or showcase their impeccable credentials.
Immensely disappointing after all the hype.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

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DanaDaskalovaApr 2, 2023

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Any time I see such a discrepancy between the users rating and the critics rating in Metascore, I know this will be yet another pretentious attempt at scoring points for Cannes or the Oscars.

There's nothing impressive about this film apart from the great examples of Berlin industrial interior design - this was awesome. Everything else consisted of random scenes that convey no actual message in regard to the plot - Tar's meetings with people, rehearsals, her getting a custom suit fitted (?), self indulgent convertsations and huge name dropping. There's an attempt to add a mystery element and imply vague notions about the protagonist's unfit mental state by half assedly mentioning a story about a previous love interest of Tar who as we learn, was banned from the industry because of her fallout with Tar. We never really get anything more about this story apart from the fact that this is what comes back to bite Tar in the a** and also, that this haunts her.

Overall, you don't need 2.5h hours to tell this story. We never really get to see and experience what's going on inside Tar's head. She's portrayed as a genius throughout the whole film which also isn't conveyed in any believable manner. It seems to me Todd Field aimed at something like Amadeus but 2022 style - and it didn't work.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

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LittlegizmoFeb 11, 2023

the only thing good about this movie is the acting... the rest is a complete mess... not worth a best picture nomination at the oscars at all...

3 of 4 users found this helpful31

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kutijanosNov 24, 2022

I found the glowing reviews by the critics to be misleading. The film was pretentious and self-indulgent, with no real point to the contrived dramatics. Classical music and the trappings around it was used as a gimmick to make it seem deep,I found the glowing reviews by the critics to be misleading. The film was pretentious and self-indulgent, with no real point to the contrived dramatics. Classical music and the trappings around it was used as a gimmick to make it seem deep, serious, and cultured, but there was very little "there" there finally. It all seemed to me like a Woody Allen movie, with its heavy-handedness and lack of genuineness by the characters, but without the humor and charm. Poorly executed narrative, bogged down with inconsequential minutiae. And I believe the lesbian element was just queerbaiting and not significantly relevant to the story. Lest I come across like an uncultured curmudgeon, I saw the film with my sister who has been a musician in a major orchestra for fifty years and she had the same impression of it. I had to apologize to her afterwards. Cate Blanchett certainly put a tremendous amount of work into her role, so will probably win all kinds of awards for it, but the talent was wasted on this project.… Expand

8 of 13 users found this helpful85

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pmoney666Dec 9, 2022

Tar: Whiplash 2

If you are a musician you will find this movie hilarious. Imagine there is a conductor somehow SO great, as if it worked that way, that he/she starts their career conducting the five biggest Orchestra's in the United StatesTar: Whiplash 2

If you are a musician you will find this movie hilarious. Imagine there is a conductor somehow SO great, as if it worked that way, that he/she starts their career conducting the five biggest Orchestra's in the United States IN A ROW and then settles as the principal conductor for Berlin. That's Tar. Looking into the directors/writer's background, he did Jazz band in high school/college and felt that he could competently write a script on the classical music world. I'm not a movie person, but I like to think I can follow a story and themes pretty well and even that aspect of the movie felt shallow. Maybe the lighting or shot composition is interesting to someone, I don't know, but I don't think non-artists should be brow-beated by name drops (DUDAMEL, BERNSTEIN, ELGAR etc.) and jargon. That doesn't convey actual knowledge on a subject and is a cheap way to earn points with a low-knowledge audience. It's so bad that the plot doesn't begin until the first fourty minutes of the movie are over, until that point it's just pretentious name dropping.

Someone else stated also mentioned the aspect of queer-baiting, which is very true of this movie. We have real life incidents of MALE conductor's being sex pest, even recently, but instead they make a movie about a sex pest who is actually the world's greatest lesbian. Why was it even necessary? There's a Julliard student in one of the scenes explaining that they don't listen to Bach because he was a straight white male, as if that person could possibly exist in Julliard, with the most heavy-handed and stupid dialogue. Basically it's a long, ignorant and boring movie that seems to have fooled its audience with a bunch of jargon and pretension that kind of rides the line of being trashy tabloid ****… Expand

6 of 12 users found this helpful66

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kaczan3Apr 12, 2023

Seems like a finger-pointing effort. There is a scene where a guy starts talking about priviledge of white guys, and the protagonist is somehow a voice of reason, correcting him, even though most of her fame stems from the fact that she'sSeems like a finger-pointing effort. There is a scene where a guy starts talking about priviledge of white guys, and the protagonist is somehow a voice of reason, correcting him, even though most of her fame stems from the fact that she's "the forst female conductor of a major German orchiestra", which movie's marketing informs us of.… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

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OlivierPielDec 17, 2022

Not everyone can be a Haneke or a Bergman when it comes to understanding how "classical" music and its performers can be woven into a visual art form such as cinema, but every American critic must pretend they like a pompous and pretentiousNot everyone can be a Haneke or a Bergman when it comes to understanding how "classical" music and its performers can be woven into a visual art form such as cinema, but every American critic must pretend they like a pompous and pretentious "movie" about classical music when it collides with Metoo and wokeism...while delivering the usual trite Hollywood story line. As a Frenchman, it is always very satisfying to contemptuously laugh at the ham-fisted snobbishness of wannabe-cultured East-Coast American middle-class audience, the modern version of Molière's "Bourgeois Gentilhomme".
The first 25 minutes are Cate Blanchett talking her pretentious ass off about Mahler, the Amazon river tribes, khabbalism and whatnot We know the purpose of this quite literal "exposition", however this is not cinema: This is torture! A clever filmmaker, say Orson Welles, would have needed one frame to do that exposition!

To give this a 3/10, would mean giving a 14/10 to "the Pianist" by Haneke and maybe 15/10 to Bergman's "Summer Interlude". This should be a minus 100.… Expand

5 of 12 users found this helpful57

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ElcaOct 15, 2022

Renowned musician Lydia Tár 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.

4 of 13 users found this helpful49

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