Quick Take: TAR

 

It tickles me silly to see TAR playing in virtually every suburban multiplex in the Chicago area (albeit in small, cozy auditoriums sandwiched between the mammoth ones where mainstream darlings like Black Adam and Ticket to Paradise will play to sold-out crowds this weekend.) TAR is anything but multiplex fare: an esoteric, intellectually demanding, two-hour-and-forty minute roller coaster ride of an art film anchored by Cate Blanchett's triumphant performance.in the title role.

Todd Field, who wrote and directed (and who hasn't made a film since Little Children in 2006), sets high expectations for the audience’s attention span from the get-go. He opens with  Lydia Tar (Blanchett), the celebrated conductor of Berlin's symphony orchestra, being interviewed before an adoring audience by Adam Gopnik (a staff writer for the New Yorker, playing himself). The conversation is rarefied and dense as it delves into the finer points of conducting Mahler symphonies, and I defy the average moviegoer to understand or even care about the discussion. From there, she goes on to have lunch with a colleague where wait staff appear regularly in servile silence to fill water glasses and deliver bread baskets as she coldly discusses her plan to 'rotate' an aging colleague to a lesser orchestra. And then she's off to teach a class at Julliard where she's particularly pedantic and brutal towards a young, queer person of color who "can't get on board with Bach as a while cisgender male." It's a lot to follow...

The character's emotional life, if a bit easier to get our heads around, is just as complicated. She has a long-term partner (the orchestra's first violinist, played with simmering, dwindling patience by Nina Hoss), a stalker who commits suicide in the wake of Tar's coldness, an almost predatory flirtation with a young Russian cellist, and an implied romantic history with her quietly disgruntled personal assistant. By contrast, she’s also a loving, doting mother to her young daughter.

Lydia Tar, in the end, is the sort of complicated, fiercely talented -- and just as fiercely arrogant - artist that men were allowed to be (even indulged in being) for centuries. But Field doesn't take an obvious stand on whether Tar's persecution is excessive due to her gender. Instead he depicts her decline with a cool, detached lack of escalating intensity, an emotional temperature which suits and complement's Tar's own chilly, cerebral personality. (And one which is echoed and underlined by the production design, particularly in Tar's spacious but hard-edged Berlin apartment.)  The film concludes in an extended coda showing us Tar's life in professional exile. Some reviewers have deemed this section superfluous, but I found it not only a perfect denouement, but one laced with welcome comic relief as well. The final scene of TAR is a startling and funny metaphor for Lydia Tar's new start in an unfamiliar and far less privileged life.

Blanchett's portrayal of a brilliant, difficult artist brought low by the potent combination of cancel culture and her own obstinate hubris, is not so much dazzling as it is flawlessly committed. It's a masterful performance that doesn't draw attention to itself; you're never aware that you're watching Cate Blanchett act. Instead you're captivated by the character herself - by her intellect and her passion, but also by her self-destructive blindness to the cultural and emotional  tectonic shifts taking place just under her feet. It's a stunningly executed tale of a fall from grace.

A Little Bit About a Lot of Movies

 I'm back!

Since I last posted (over 3 months ago), I've spent more time travelling and checking sites off my bucket list than I have spent watching movies. I could tell you more, but that's for another time....This is a movie blog, not a travel blog. (Although someday, I may need to start writing one of those too...) So today's post is about the movies I've squeezed in, both before and after those trips.

(Note: in the 'where to stream' information below, "the usual platforms" refers to Apple, Amazon, Vudu, Google Play and Redbox.)

The Princess (director: Ed Perkins)

Did we really need yet another documentary about Princess Diana? Is there anything left to say about the most over-analyzed, over-documented, over-worshipped woman of our times?

With The Princess, the answer to those questions turns out to be "Maybe." What this documentary has to say isn't entirely new, but it's packaged and presented in a singularly incisive fashion. 

Director Ed Perkins has made a revelatory and provocative film about the late princess by eschewing both narration and the usual round of talking head commentary by royal watchers like Penny Junor, Ingrid Seward and Tina Brown. (Missing too, blessedly, is Diana's former personal assistant, the nauseatingly unctuous Paul Burrell.) Instead, Perkins assembles news coverage of Diana, chronologically from her courtship with Prince Charles through her funeral, and alternates it with the reactions of both the news media and ordinary Britons to every development along the way. It feels almost like a standard narrative film rather than a documentary. 

Ultimately, The Princess is the story of a mismatched couple who were never really happy together, but whose relationship was transfigured - both by an adoring public starving for happy endings and a craven news media - to comply with the mythos of fairy tales.  As that fairy tale devolved, the public unflinchingly projected their own issues onto the royal couple while the British news media happily stirred the pot. That's not necessarily an original point of view, but the thoughtful and compelling way that Perkins has assembled his material makes this point with stinging clarity. The clips of Diana and Charles together are painfully revealing; in a pre-wedding interview, Diana's body language is so tortured - her shoulders hunched so high and tense - that she looks like a turtle trying to disappear into its shell. Charles looks unmistakably glum as the couple exit St. Paul's Cathedral after the wedding. These signs were overlooked by everyone in those early hopeful days, but it's still startling to hear so many Brits let fly with nasty and ugly comments once the fairy tale is exposed for the sham it always was.

I'm not sure whether Perkins means to imply that we are complicit in Diana's tragedy (being an American. it's easy - or at least convenient - for me to exempt myself from that implication). But he's unsparing in exposing the public's overinvestment in her life.

(The Princess is available to stream only on HBO Max.)

Amsterdam (director: David O. Russell)

The first adjective that comes to mind when I think of Amsterdam is 'overstuffed.' It's got some great performances (mainly by its central trio of Christian Bale, John David Washington and Margot Robbie), while other, elsewhere wonderful actors barely make an impression (Andrea Riseborough, Anna Taylor-Joy). There's too much plot to keep track off - too many tossed off subplots that deserve more weight and consideration - while the overall tone of non-stop zaniness and comic caricature overwhelms the sadder and more serious elements of the story (the rise of fascism and the tragedy of discarded World War I veterans chief among them). These are weaknesses shared with Russell's earlier star-studded hit American Hustle,  but are even more problematic and glaring here. Sometimes, I long for the simple, highly enjoyable goofiness of Russell's early, low-budget efforts like Flirting with Disaster, which was much tighter and funnier than this film, although much less ambitious. Amsterdam, however, might have worked better as a television mini-series. Given some time to better develop the plot and the supporting characters, it could have been a helluva ride.

(Amsterdam is now playing in theaters. A streaming date has not yet been announced.)

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (director: Anthony Fabian)

This is a perfectly sweet and charming little movie version of a Paul Gallico novel that hit the best seller list in 1957. Lesley Manville plays the widowed British charwoman who wins the lottery and decides to splurge on a Christian Dior dress.  Her ability to pay cash for her dress gets her into the snooty but struggling post-war House of Dior, and she manages to charm and endear herself to the elegant Parisians. (Even, ultimately, to the snooty Dior administrator, played with full 'good sport about playing a French cliché' energy by Isabelle Huppert.) The movie sparkles and shines, both literally (Paris and Dior look suitably glamorous) and emotionally. Manville is warm and brisk at the same moment, and there are happy endings for all. 

(Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is available to stream or purchase on the usual platforms.)

Blonde (director: Andrew Dominik)

At a time when the lives of so many famous women (from Emily Dickinson to Catherine the Great to Joan Crawford and Bette Davis)  are being reconsidered and reframed in films and television series, here comes a visually lovely but emotionally ugly film that shackles poor Marilyn Monroe to the same old tired cliches of degradation and exploitation. The film is stunning to look at (the cinematography is exceptional) but painful to watch. Ana de Armas gives her all in the title role. Unfortunately, writer/director Andrew Dominik is committed to pushing aside all suggestions that Monroe had any real agency in her own life, let alone any friends or allies. There is no evidence, anywhere, that Monroe had an abortion in real life, yet it becomes a major plot point and recurring theme here, with Monroe shown to be haunted by her decision for the rest of her life. (The unborn child she conceives with husband Arthur Miller even shames her about it, speaking to her in a squeaky, cartoon child's voice from inside her womb -  only one of many such bizarre scenes. Fetal imagery is heavily used throughout to sledgehammer home the point that Marilyn was devastated by her inability to bear a child.)

In fairness to Dominik, Blonde is based on a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, which I've not read. So perhaps he's just being faithful to Oates' own fictional take on the events of Monroe's life.  But either way, it's a tough and infuriating viewing experience.

(Blonde is available to stream only on Netflix.)

Emily the Criminal  (director: John Patton Ford)

A great performance from Aubrey Plaza makes this film an especially compelling experience. Plaza plays a restaurant delivery worker who's struggling - and failing - to pay off student loans while making the rent. Given the opportunity to make fast cash as part a credit card fraud ring, she's at first hesitant, then all in. Emily the Criminal subverts expectations; at first glance, it appears to be an almost Ken Loach-esque tale about the impossibility of getting by in the gig economy, but it evolves into something darker and more particular. Plaza's Emily is a complex and not altogether sympathetic character. At some point, it becomes difficult to tell which characters are criminals and which are victims.

(Emily the Criminal is available to stream or purchase on the usual platforms.)

Where the Crawdads Sing (director: Olivia Newman)

I'll cut to the chase here. I hated the book - didn't even finish reading it, in fact - and only saw the movie because my friends had chosen it.  But the film version of Delia Owens' best-selling novel is an amazing example of how good casting and good direction can elevate mediocre material.

(Please don't tell me how much you loved the book. If it worked for you, I'm glad. Myself, I could not get past the ludicrous implausibility of a six-year-old girl raising herself alone in a crumbling house out on a lonely bayou - let alone the fact that the friendly adult shopkeepers who know all about what's going on wouldn't call child protective services to get the child into a real home and into school.)

But I digress...

Daisy Edgar-Jones, playing the grown-up version of that girl on the bayou, brings emotional authenticity to her problematic character, capturing the character's innocence and raw naivete with a total lack of apparent calculation. David Strathhairn, who plays her defense lawyer (she's charged with the murder of a local rich boy) is, well.... perfectly David Strathhairn-y (which means he's as good and fascinating to watch as he is in every other movie. He's a reliable rock of character actor greatness.) Director Olivia Newman finds a rhythm and a vibe for this film that allowed my brain to stop clicking off each unbelievable plot development and just get immersed in the story and characters. In spite of every curmudgeonly impulse I brought with me to the theater that evening, I wound up invested in and transported by the story from start to finish. And isn't that what movies are supposed to do?

(Where the Crawdads Sing is available to stream or purchase on the usual platforms.)