The Fabelmans will never be fought over like Tár, but it has far more to say about the joy of art

‘Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett, above) is a dictator – a model of power for conductors that is in steep decline, and, in fact, largely out of reach for women.’ Photograph: Courtesy of Focus Features

For a film that has, if you want to be blunt about it, tanked at the box office, Tár has provoked a disproportionate amount of conversation. It’s possible that the discourse around the film – about a powerful, highly successful and extremely problematic conductor called Lydia Tár, played by Cate Blanchett – is as interesting as the film itself.

I’ve heard multiple, conflicting interpretations of Tár: that it’s a disgraceful misrepresentation of the field of classical music; that it’s all too real; that it’s all too surreal; that it carries an intellectual heft that is rare at the movies; that it’s not half as clever as it thinks it is; that it’s not about conducting, it’s about power; that it’s not about power, it’s about narcissism; that it’s about a clash of ethics between the generations; that it’s about third-wave feminism; that its central character, in all her “unlikeability”, is arrestingly complex; that its central character is irredeemably hateful; that it’s a fascinating, even-handed anatomisation of “cancel culture”; that it is actually a “regressive” movie that takes “bitter aim” at identity politics. Then there is an extensive online debate devoted to decoding its eerie final act. There’s something exciting about a film that is such an open text, that demands so much discussion.