The answers Fields supplies are not always satisfying, but for much of the film, he and Blanchett orchestrate a mesmerizing character study. Just how deeply connected is Lydia's cruelty to her genius?

We follow Lydia's every move with a mix of awe (she is genuinely brilliant), curiosity (how much can she get away with?) and wonder. It's Fields' first film in 16 years, following the uneven 2006 misfire “Little Children” and his assured Oscar-nominated 2001 debut, “In the Bedroom.” At 2 hours and 38 minutes, you can almost feel him trying to make up for the lost years in “Tár.” Into it he funnels a gripping portrait of power and art, rigorous and devastating in its exactitude, while impressively less definite about a host of hot-button issues like so-called cancel culture, identity politics and #MeToo.īut though Lydia's mounting issues - whispers about her propensity to groom young female players as her lovers the suicide of a former trainee conductor following Lydia's blacklisting of her a young daughter (Mila Bogojevic) she leaves largely for her wife and philharmonic concertmaster (the brilliant Nina Hoss) to care for - are increasingly public, “Tár” is a thoroughly intimate film. “Tár,” written and directed by Fields, is, itself, distinguished by time. It's in these chilly, highbrow environs that Lydia operates with exquisite intellect and ruthless cunning - and Blanchett gives a colossal tour-de-force performance that may be the finest of her career, a career as decorated as Lydia's. The film is shot by Florian Hoffmeister with a cool, almost documentary-like perspective. The spaces Lydia occupies are crisply contemporary architectures.

“Tár,” which opens in theaters Friday, is situated in a very real high-art, big-media world. Yet an introductory, fleeting moment of a phone camera pointed at an asleep Lydia, with mocking texts filling the screen, presages that the conductor's rarified perch may be in jeopardy.

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