If you drew the story arc of "Tár," it would be a long horizontal line that ends with an angled, nearly vertical one. In other words, nothing happens for quite a while and then a whole lot happens at once.
For its first two hours, writer/director Todd Field's movie wants us to meet conductor Lydia Tár, a genius when she's leading her orchestra in Berlin but a horrendous person offstage. Manipulative, deceitful, demanding and rude, she shows us who she is when she threatens a pre-teen bully on a playground and, perhaps more to the point, when her assistant mentions International Women's Day and she has no idea what that is. There's not a lot of plot in "Tár" but you can consider that last detail foreshadowing, since it turns out Tár is accused of mistreating a series of young female musicians.
If you're up for a character portrait, "Tár" is a fine one. Its title character is a fascinating study in whether it's possible to separate artistic output from behavior (in an onstage interview with New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik, Tár says it's possible). Does Tár realize how awful she is? Is she so devoted to music that she doesn't think about anything else — including her wife (the brilliant Nina Hoss) and, possibly, daughter? Has she convinced herself she must satisfy her selfish desires in order to create the aural beauty that is her calling? What does it mean that her life is classical music but she only listens to jazz at home?
