First off, Todd Field is a talented storyteller and got some pointers in his style from none other than Stanley Kubrick. In the Bedroom and Little Children were beautifully hot, occasionally painful to watch examinations of small town citizens dealing with tragedy. He totally went off the rails with this movie. Following a very long credits sequence (ALL of the movie credits are presented at the start of the film), the movie begins with a half hour interview with Lydia Tar, the world renowned conductor whom Cate Blanchett plays so effectively, I had to Google the name to see if she is/was a real person. She's not - but Blanchett dives head first into this complex and in the end quite irredeemable character. This is another extremely long film that easily could have been trimmed at least by 30 minutes. That opening interview, for example. Yeah, I get it, we're supposed to see from the start what a brilliant but self-serving individual Lydia Tar is. I stuck with it until the end, and the last shot is a quintessential WTF moment. I admire Blanchett the actor. The fact that her character in this movie made me want to throw something at my TV must mean she got under my skin - mission accomplished. But this film is a tough watch.
