Over the last few years, the #MeToo movement has shone a light on Bad Behavior, on powerful people’s actions that were once socially acceptable but have now come to be seen for what they really are—abuse. An underlying thread of narcissism links all these stories, these individuals who see themselves as above the law, and indeed, above other people.  Enter Todd Field, known for his complex psychological explorations of grief (In The Bedroom) and damning, unsettling depictions of child abuse (Little Children). Bolstered by a tour de force performance by Cate Blanchett, Tar is a worthy follow-up to those two films, equally as devastating in its portrayal of post-#MeToo narcissism.

The film opens with an extended credits crawl, ala films of decades past—elegant white text on a black screen.  This is an intentionally pretentious opening, one which insists upon its own importance—much like the titular character.  Blanchett plays Lydia Tar, the first female chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.  As the film opens, Lydia is at the top of her game.  She participates in a Q and A with The New Yorker, promoting her upcoming book, “Tar on Tar,” as well as her highly anticipated recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. During the talk, she gesticulates dramatically, an occupational hazard to be sure, but also an attempt to control the space and the conversation.  She emphatically, almost defensively, argues that her role is important, that she controls time.  “I start the clock,” she tells the packed house. 

Lydia surrounds herself with people she can manipulate, like her assistant, Francesca (Noemie Merlant, who was so fantastic in Portrait of a Lady on Fire—if you haven’t seen it, stop reading this review now and watch it), to whom her relationship might not be entirely professional.  Mark Strong, rocking an amazingly terrible combover, makes a brief appearance as Eliot, the manager of Lydia’s fellowship program and himself a conductor, albeit clearly inferior to her. Even her marriage has a significant power differential, as her partner Sharon (Nina Hoss) is a member of her orchestra.  The only person who seems to be Lydia’s equal is Andris (Julian Glover), a retired conductor with his own self-admitted history of “sexual impropriety.” When Lydia and Andris talk, it’s as two ships passing in the night.  In true narcissist fashion, they talk at each other, not to each other.  

Without spoiling anything, it’s this toxic milieu that gives rise to Lydia’s gradual, inevitable, self-fulfilling decline.  Misdeeds from her past come back to haunt her, as the ramifications of her choices gradually come to light.  Field, who also wrote the script, respects the audience’s intelligence enough to let them fill in the blanks.  There is no smoking gun here, no scene in which Tar blatantly commits an illegal act.  Instead, all the signs are there, in the way she interacts with other people.  She constantly touches other people, in a clear act of dominance.  At one point, she touches Francesca’s shoulder, causing her to recoil subtly.  She also tears down people who challenge her power and the hierarchies she perpetuates.  While teaching a class at Juilliard, she encounters Max (Zethphan Smith-Gneist), a self-professed pangender, BIPOC student who has no interest in Bach, a cis male composer. Lydia begins to needle them, openly ridiculing and dismissing their views in front of their classmates. “Don’t be so eager to be offended,” she scoffs. This scene is beautifully done, as Max’s discomfort visibly increases (tapping their feet, laughing incredulously at her barbs) until they explode and storm out.

There are countless examples of this kind of behavior throughout the film.  Lydia is not an enjoyable character to spend time with.  And she’s not supposed to be.  She’s a terrifying, icy, uncomfortable, controlling presence.  But it speaks to how engaging Blanchett’s performance is that we’re willing to continue tolerating her company, to see how her story unfolds.  Blanchett’s method approach truly lets her disappear into the character.  In every scene, she uses exaggerated, aggressive body language to dominate her scene partner.  Indeed, during one of her rehearsals, she gives a genuine full-body performance, moving all her limbs to conduct her grand symphony.  And as her world slowly crumbles and her ego is increasingly damaged, her rigidly controlled posture eventually devolves into animalistic rage.  This is clearly Blanchett’s film, as the other actors are almost an afterthought (much as Lydia would have it). Hers is a note-perfect, bravura performance, which not only meets but exceeds the script’s already impressive psychological nuance.  

The cinematography and set design accentuate her character, as the film is largely made up of stark, uninviting blues and grays.  Her Berlin apartment is an inhuman marvel, full of cement walls and devoid of any discernible warmth. The sound design is also impeccable, as Lydia begins to hear disturbing sounds—a chiming, a woman’s scream in the park, the ticking of a metronome. This memento mori serves as a portent of some impending, unknowable doom.  Even her daughter Petra (Mila Bogojevic) hears strange sounds at night, suggesting that the fallout from Lydia’s behavior doesn’t just affect her—it also damages the ones who love her.

This is clearly a movie written by someone with firsthand knowledge of unchecked, malignant narcissism, and it shows. The choice to focus the movie on a self-described “U-Haul lesbian” forces the audience to examine her actions on their own merits (or lack thereof), to separate them from any preconceived notions of gender and sexuality.  Cinema, and life, are full of stories of cis white men behaving badly.  Indeed this is a damning indictment of egomaniacs who are finding it increasingly difficult to get away with flagrant abuses of power post-#MeToo.  Try as she might, Lydia is no longer in control of her own narrative, nor anyone else’s.