Ruby Moon

She kissed a(nother) girl and she liked it…… I think Cate Blanchett is a fine actress and loved her in ‘Notes on a Scandal’ and ‘Carol’ but like Julia Roberts in ‘Eat, Love, Pray’, she ensured that she was in every scene of Tar; both were producers in their respective films so understandably needed to be featured prominently. So we had endless, repetitive scenes of Lydia Tar running, LT trying to compose, and LT’s facial expressions and colouring - dark when she was emotionally heightened, light when she was sad - which were supposed to be a mirror of whatever was happening in the narrative. This film had the potential to explore so many other, more interesting storylines: LT’s backstory which was alluded to only towards the end, and what led her to be her current self. A better film would have focussed on 2 – 3 main themes. Instead we have various vignettes to demonstrate LT’s mental state in the moment: bullying her bullied daughter’s antagonist; the strange accordion scene when she’s asked to keep the music down; wordlessly and reluctantly helping the disabled mother and daughter neighbours living in squalid conditions. The film also fails to highlight the protective power of wealth: the poor neighbour’s daughter is sent to an institution by greedy, uncaring relatives; Tar on the other hand is shunted off to some generic Far Eastern country (was it Thailand? was it Malaysia? was it China? who knows?) to escape from litigation and safeguard the reputation of the musical establishment. In real life people who are clearly in mental decline would be given help to recover. Some people have claimed that this film presents women in a bad light but narcissism and the abuse of power are not the sole domain of any gender. Sadly there was no honesty here, no self-insight or a willingness to confront Tar’s own egoistic behaviour which may have saved the film from being an overlong paean to CB’s general fabulousness. I'd like to have given this film 2.5 stars to equate to its length in hours but couldn't bring myself to be so generous.

Try as you might, it's hard to view Tom Cruise as an action hero due to his diddyness. Not so much James Bond, more like a sexless Ken doll. In MI 2 smoothie chops finally loses his virginity, then proceeds to pimp the love interest to her ex-boyfriend. Seriously? Considering the film was made 20 years ago when even Bond 'girls' had evolved beyond being mere sex objects this was regressive. Visually stunning, but morally bankrupt.