To me, Tar is a fascinating case of sitting in a theater, admiring a performance, but wondering what the heck this movie is even about. I guess it’s about a human life but I’m not sure what else. I was left… static… while watching it. Static like the acting, static like the filmmaking.

Tar stars Cate Blanchette as an EGOT-winning conductor/composer who is planning to record Mahler’s fifth symphony to release as a set with all his other symphonies while completing and promoting a book. There’s a lot of subtle twists and turns about her life, assistant, girlfriend, daughter, etc. etc. etc.

This movie exists for Blanchette to give an unceremonious, reserved performance, building a character with all her strengths and weaknesses subtly on display. It’s somehow both a showy and un-showy performance… showy in that Blanchette is working hard to show off she can perform these long takes… un-showy in that her character (for the most part) remains staid and undramatic.

And so does the movie itself. Staid and undramatic. Showy in terms of the confident film-making but also not showy since there are few dramatic peaks and valleys. This is not a melodrama… no one is standing on stage emoting with the fullness of their desires. There are dramatic things that occur, but the movie remains feet planted on the ground, uninterested in being dramatic or overacting.

Hell, this movie about a maestro conductor is barely interested in being a movie about music. It might as well have been a movie about the best gas station attendant in the world (he said far more dramatically than anything in this movie). When I heard about a movie staring Blanchette as a conductor, I was expecting symphonies or heart-felt discussions about music and what it means. The movie has some of that, but far far less than you’d expect for a 2 1/2 hour movie about a conductor with an EGOT. I’m pretty sure there’s no non-diegetic music in the film… no film score, just music as heard when in an orchestra hall rehearsal.

That’s a lot of seeming negatives for a film that I was distinctly placidly but not passionately watching. It wasn’t boring but I kept wondering when it was going to flow into something that reflected adoration or full-bodied love for music. Asking myself what this movie was “About”… but realizing it was “just” about a person.

I didn’t hate my time in my seat, but I was mystified why the movie was so inert and passionless. I get the choice, but not convinced of the intent. But Cate Blanchette does a fine job in her reserved capacity depicting a reserved person, at least.

Score: 85