Spoiler Alert: This is more of a critique.
I found this film frustrating to say the least. Yes, Blanchett's performance is mesmerizing but her character, Lydia Tar, doesn't have many redeeming qualities outside of her musicianship. But that's only part of the problem. This story if story it can be called centers on Lydia who seems to have everything a classical music artist could desire. But she ends up in scenes where I thought it was Tar in Unwonderland and we were losing the gist of the story.
The opening scene is an interview with Lydia in which nearly half the interview was listing her awards. (The opening credits were longer than many scenes!) She's won every award imaginable from an Oscar to a Grammy to Best Guest on Sesame Street. (Just kidding about the last one, but the list is long.)
This presents a problem as it seems from the get-go, the character can only go down. And incredibly unrealistic. (Btw not even Leonard Bernstein had achieved the so-called "EGOT", Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards. He was nominated for the Academy Award once but didn't win.) I could have bought she had won two of the four and striving for the other two. But all four seemed much. But again, this is only the beginning of the problems I had with this film.
Just as things seemed to be too mundane for their own good, she has lunch with a fellow conductor where they talk classical music like inside baseball. I'm a classical musician and I knew what they were discussing, but would an average audience? And the discussion didn't seem to propel the story at all.
Then there's a blood-bath scene in which she puts a young conducting student at Julliard in his place. Yes when I was a music student at the undergraduate level I had seen such confrontations, and I was even the target of a couple of such episodes. But my issue was the whole scenario was never really further developed except for someone having secretly video-taped the class session. The video is doctored and used as evidence against her later in the film but to what end. It's never quite explained. We someone with a camera video-taping Lydia at different events but we never find out who she was or her motives. I wondered if it was Krista.
Then the story seemed to pick up when we meet a young cellist, Olga, who is being considered for the orchestra in Berlin, the orchestra where Lydia is the music director and main conductor. Lydia sees a video of the cellist playing her heart out performing the Elgar Cello Concerto, one of the great concertos in my humble opinion. Turns out the performance was when she was 13, and we assume she's probably now about 25. Highly unusual for a cellist to be that accomplished at such a young age, but I was willing to run with it.
Lydia proposes to have her orchestra perform the Elgar Cello Concerto and we immediately realize she wants Olga to be the soloist rather than the first chair cellist who's probably been there for many years. Using her ability to get what she wants while making it seem "egalitarian" she holds auditions. The story seemed to be on its way to be about the conflict between her lesbian lover, the first chair cellist, and the orchestra itself which is now murmuring behind Lydia's back.
As a side story, there's a young musician, Krista, who has committed suicide and it appears Lydia had some kind of relationship with her. There are emails from her both on her computer and her assistant's where she says things like there's nothing to live for. An investigation begins into her death. But that's another one of the loose threads which is never explained or resolved.
Then the story takes some further strange turns which seem to make no sense and not relate to the main plot of the story. Lydia hears strange sounds, often while sleeping. She often gets up in the middle of the night and looks into the refrigerator. At one point she hears a metronome which is accidentally turned on in the middle of the night.
She has an adopted daughter she cares for with her lesibian "wife"/ There are a few scenes with her but eventually she is taken from her. An interesting character but I thought a distraction. She even gets lost in some slum housing where she thinks Olga the cellist resides and is attacked but we don't see who or what attacked her!
Olga accompanies Lydia to New York, but even here I was confused that they were together. (We don't see Olga on the plane.) However, after they return, the story of the cellist seems to disappear from the movie altogether. Her lesbian lover accuses her of having an affair with Olga but they don't communicate. This is further not resolved except I guess we as the audience assume they've broken up.
Regarding Krista, Lydia is accused of impropriety and her assistant quits. Then the authorities want the emails from the late Krista. Because of questions about Lydia's behavior, she's fired from the orchestra, or at least we gather. It's never fully explained.
The whole thing climaxes with the most bizarre scene of the entire film, which exiles her from the classical music world of Europe. Even a power-hungry conductor would know that such behavior is a career-ending faux pas. And the film ends with her in another country in a gig which has the importance of about 1% of her gig in Berlin.
But the loose ends were too loose and unresolved and I felt ultimately dissatisfied with the ending. We never quite understand what had happened with Lydia and Krista. We never see the cellist perform the Elgar. We aren't even quite told what happens to Lydia's lesbian lover. Her final gig is a kind of a what? Which is how I started to feel throughout the last half of the film, It went from boring to interesting, maybe potential, to too bizarre for its own good.
I found this film frustrating to say the least. Yes, Blanchett's performance is mesmerizing but her character, Lydia Tar, doesn't have many redeeming qualities outside of her musicianship. But that's only part of the problem. This story if story it can be called centers on Lydia who seems to have everything a classical music artist could desire. But she ends up in scenes where I thought it was Tar in Unwonderland and we were losing the gist of the story.
The opening scene is an interview with Lydia in which nearly half the interview was listing her awards. (The opening credits were longer than many scenes!) She's won every award imaginable from an Oscar to a Grammy to Best Guest on Sesame Street. (Just kidding about the last one, but the list is long.)
This presents a problem as it seems from the get-go, the character can only go down. And incredibly unrealistic. (Btw not even Leonard Bernstein had achieved the so-called "EGOT", Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards. He was nominated for the Academy Award once but didn't win.) I could have bought she had won two of the four and striving for the other two. But all four seemed much. But again, this is only the beginning of the problems I had with this film.
Just as things seemed to be too mundane for their own good, she has lunch with a fellow conductor where they talk classical music like inside baseball. I'm a classical musician and I knew what they were discussing, but would an average audience? And the discussion didn't seem to propel the story at all.
Then there's a blood-bath scene in which she puts a young conducting student at Julliard in his place. Yes when I was a music student at the undergraduate level I had seen such confrontations, and I was even the target of a couple of such episodes. But my issue was the whole scenario was never really further developed except for someone having secretly video-taped the class session. The video is doctored and used as evidence against her later in the film but to what end. It's never quite explained. We someone with a camera video-taping Lydia at different events but we never find out who she was or her motives. I wondered if it was Krista.
Then the story seemed to pick up when we meet a young cellist, Olga, who is being considered for the orchestra in Berlin, the orchestra where Lydia is the music director and main conductor. Lydia sees a video of the cellist playing her heart out performing the Elgar Cello Concerto, one of the great concertos in my humble opinion. Turns out the performance was when she was 13, and we assume she's probably now about 25. Highly unusual for a cellist to be that accomplished at such a young age, but I was willing to run with it.
Lydia proposes to have her orchestra perform the Elgar Cello Concerto and we immediately realize she wants Olga to be the soloist rather than the first chair cellist who's probably been there for many years. Using her ability to get what she wants while making it seem "egalitarian" she holds auditions. The story seemed to be on its way to be about the conflict between her lesbian lover, the first chair cellist, and the orchestra itself which is now murmuring behind Lydia's back.
As a side story, there's a young musician, Krista, who has committed suicide and it appears Lydia had some kind of relationship with her. There are emails from her both on her computer and her assistant's where she says things like there's nothing to live for. An investigation begins into her death. But that's another one of the loose threads which is never explained or resolved.
Then the story takes some further strange turns which seem to make no sense and not relate to the main plot of the story. Lydia hears strange sounds, often while sleeping. She often gets up in the middle of the night and looks into the refrigerator. At one point she hears a metronome which is accidentally turned on in the middle of the night.
She has an adopted daughter she cares for with her lesibian "wife"/ There are a few scenes with her but eventually she is taken from her. An interesting character but I thought a distraction. She even gets lost in some slum housing where she thinks Olga the cellist resides and is attacked but we don't see who or what attacked her!
Olga accompanies Lydia to New York, but even here I was confused that they were together. (We don't see Olga on the plane.) However, after they return, the story of the cellist seems to disappear from the movie altogether. Her lesbian lover accuses her of having an affair with Olga but they don't communicate. This is further not resolved except I guess we as the audience assume they've broken up.
Regarding Krista, Lydia is accused of impropriety and her assistant quits. Then the authorities want the emails from the late Krista. Because of questions about Lydia's behavior, she's fired from the orchestra, or at least we gather. It's never fully explained.
The whole thing climaxes with the most bizarre scene of the entire film, which exiles her from the classical music world of Europe. Even a power-hungry conductor would know that such behavior is a career-ending faux pas. And the film ends with her in another country in a gig which has the importance of about 1% of her gig in Berlin.
But the loose ends were too loose and unresolved and I felt ultimately dissatisfied with the ending. We never quite understand what had happened with Lydia and Krista. We never see the cellist perform the Elgar. We aren't even quite told what happens to Lydia's lesbian lover. Her final gig is a kind of a what? Which is how I started to feel throughout the last half of the film, It went from boring to interesting, maybe potential, to too bizarre for its own good.