So, Tár is nominated for Best Picture this year and has won the majority of the critics’ awards this year. Critics obviously love it, but the general public is a lot more lukewarm. For example, the Critic Rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 91%, but the Audience Score is only 73%. Its IMDb user score is only 7.6. And I’m going to side more with the general audience here – Cate Blanchett is predictably great as the main character but the overall movie is very unsatisfying.
The problem with Tár and a lot of current indie/arthouse movies is they’ve become too ambiguous. Yes, originally it was a breath of fresh air that the smaller movies didn’t spell everything out for you and often finished with an ending that could be interpreted more than one way. That would often deepen what the movie was trying to say. But in Tár the basic plot is not really explained. Lydia Tár has various scenes with characters and there’s no introduction or backstory given at all. Yes, director Todd Field isn’t trying to hold your hand, he wants you to pay attention because he gives you hints of the backstories and the interpersonal history. But when you’re paying attention and you’re not sure what’s happening and what the character’s relationships are that’s just bad storytelling.
Basic plot issues aren’t the only frustrating thing about Tár. A question is brought up after the movie has been going on for over half an hour whether we can separate great art from a morally questionable artist. And as the plot unfolds accusations come to light against Lydia. But while the film audience hears the accusations and is shown some of her problematic behavior, it’s never clear how far she went. The movie never leaves Lydia, so we’re only shown how the accusations affect her. And we’re not shown 100 years in the future whether Tár’s work has lived on or not. So, Field brings up the question of whether it’s moral to enjoy the work of a problematic creator and says absolutely nothing about it.
I kept thinking about Todd Solondz’s movie Storytelling also about problematic mentors and creators. And the assertion that one character makes in the movie that a story “is now at least a beginning, a middle, and an end”. While that indie work from over 20 years ago didn’t necessarily work; it at least had a plot to follow and a clear point of view.
This trend of ambiguity has gone too far in current indie filmmaking I believe (spoilers ahead). In 2021, the last scene of the Lost Daughter was unclear if the main character was alive or not; the year before the Father purposefully obscured the time and place of the events of the film to show the main character’s dementia. But those creative decisions helped expand the themes of the movies. Todd Field has taken this too far, and I’m afraid it’s starting to be en vogue. We’re going to be given ambivalent endings that can be interpreted as either a realistic downer or a happy ending. Filmmakers are going to bring up big questions and think that just bringing them up is enough. They’re not going to give us an actual story to follow and their not going to actually say anything. Because Tár has shown you can just bring up the question and the critics will fall over themselves praising you whether you actually say anything or not.
I really hope I’m wrong on this and there’s a swing back to more traditional storytelling. Because I don’t want to watch indie dramas that present basic story elements like a murder mystery.