Tar Ending Explained: An Ambiguous Tale Of Abuse And Consequences
This post contains spoilers for "Tár." (If you haven't seen "Tár" yet, check out our review instead.) This piece also discusses sexual assault, abuse, and suicide. Reader discretion is advised.
When Todd Field courted financiers to produce his screenplay about a world-famous fictional composer who fell from grace, he warned them directly on the page, stating that "this will not be a reasonable film." His 92-page screenplay somehow detailed a two-and-a-half-hour epic, with many long, lingering shots that feel deeply voyeuristic.
"Tár" is a complicated film dealing with painfully complex issues, introducing us to Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett), an incredibly famous composer and conductor who heads up the Berlin Philharmonic. She is wildly talented, charismatic, and a little terrifying, with the kind of larger-than-life presence that you can practically feel through the screen. She also uses her power to manipulate and sexually abuse the young women seeking her mentorship, even blacklisting those who speak up against her in any way after the fact.
It's horrific, but we also are only ever given Lydia's perspective, which almost forces the audience to side with her. It's an interesting move on Field's part that makes "Tár" more compelling than if it had been a simple, objective presentation of events.
"Tár" was nominated for six Academy Awards (but sadly didn't take home any) and created a host of great memes as audiences pretended that Lydia Tár was a living, breathing human who actually lived. It's sure to be talked about for years to come. Let's dig into that wild ending and all of the thematic meaning within "Tár," because it's as complex as the greatest symphonies.
What you need to remember about the plot of Tár
"Tár" is the vicious downward spiral of a powerful and talented person who abused her power, leading to her downfall. When we're introduced to Lydia she's at the top of her game, preparing to conduct her final Mahler symphony, having saved his seminal and complicated "Symphony No. 5" for last. She's an EGOT, too, meaning she's won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony — a rare accomplishment currently held by only 18 people, including Mel Brooks, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Viola Davis.
She was mentored by the late, great Leonard Bernstein (though she might have lied about that, according to Field) and has had an incredibly prolific career, and the final Mahler show will be the feather in her cap. There's just one problem: she's terribly abusive.
During a lecture at Julliard, she scolds a pangender BIPOC student named Max for his disinterest in the classical canon, yelling at Max: "Don't be so eager to be offended. [...] The architect of your soul appears to be social media. You must in fact stand in front of the public and God and obliterate yourself."
Lydia has to be in control, and she'll use horribly manipulative tactics to get her way. We see her gaslight her wife Sharon Goodnow (Nina Hoss) by stealing her heart medication, blacklisting and badmouthing former protégé Krista Taylor (Sylvia Flote) with whom she had a sexual relationship, and even threatening a child with violence for bullying her daughter, Petra (Mila Bogojevic). Lydia Tár is a menace, but she's also beautiful, charismatic, and talented, and it's tough to reconcile her crimes with the power fantasy she represents.
What happened at the end of Tár?
Throughout the course of the film, we learn that Lydia has abused many of her underlings, taking beautiful young women under her wing only to exploit them sexually and then abandon them. Even as she prepares for her big concert, she attempts to entrap an enigmatic Russian cellist, Olga Metkina (Sophie Kauer).
As she desperately tries to seduce Olga, the ghost of her relationship with Krista haunts her in the form of little notes left by her former lover, and then it all breaks open when Krista dies by suicide and leaves a note blaming Lydia that starts a wave of repercussions for the egotistical EGOT. She asks her assistant, Francesca Lentini (Noémie Merlant), to delete all her emails bad-talking Krista, and starts trying to head off a PR nightmare.
Unfortunately for Lydia, Francesca was another of her underlings that she abused, but she was holding on in hopes of getting a significant promotion. When Lydia gives it to someone else in order to avoid scandal, Francesca sends all of the incriminating emails to Krista's lawyers.
To make things worse, one of the students in the Julliard class filmed Lydia's tirade against poor Max and edited it to make her look much worse, highlighting some of the points in her rant that could be taken terribly out of context. It ends up getting her fired from the Philharmonic, and then she tackles her replacement during the performance. The only way she can continue conducting is by taking a job working for a video game convention in the Philippines. To a woman obsessed with her image, that's almost a fate worse than death.
What does it all mean?
Lydia's biggest problem is that she has created an identity for herself that she feels is unimpeachable, but it's all a lie. She is a talented conductor who really knows her music, but her name isn't even Lydia Tár. After she is removed from her position at the Philharmonic, she goes home to her parents' Staten Island home and we learn that she was born Linda Tarr, and changed her name to sound more worldly.
She is entirely her own creation, and as a result, she will do anything to protect that creation. That means stepping over others and putting them down because the only two people who matter to her are herself and Petra. The rest are playthings, even Olga, which is part of her downfall.
The women in her life that she's surrounded herself with have all fallen for her platitudes and promises, but Olga is different despite seeming very childish. She sees through Lydia from the start and challenges her at every turn, which seems to interest Lydia even more. She chases after the young musician, literally, and ends up falling and hurting her face, which signifies the beginning of the end as she's now visually unraveling.
She seems completely unable to accept blame or wrongdoing, but there is one hint that she's realized what she's done. In the Philippines, she goes to a massage parlor and is offered a selection of young women to choose from, arrayed like the symphony players. One of them, sitting where Olga sat in the orchestra, locks eyes with Lydia. She runs out and vomits in the street, realizing that she treated her lovers as property.
What has the cast and crew of Tár said about the ending?
In an interview with The Guardian, Cate Blanchett explained that a kind of moral ambiguity that comes from playing such a complicated person is what drew her to the role:
"One of the dangerous and alarming things about the film is that it does not invite sympathy or offer easy solutions. No one is entirely good, and no one is entirely innocent. It's a very nuanced examination of the corrupting nature of institutional power, but it's also a very human film because at the center you have someone in a state of existential crisis."
In the same interview, she also noted her hesitance to talk about the film "partly because it is so ambiguous and I don't want to define it for anyone." Todd Field has similarly embraced ambiguity, and when Variety asked him if audiences could trust what they see in the film, he said:
"I'm not trying to be cute about it, but I think your question begs another question. Your question begs that there are rules of interpretation, and there are rules of engagement with this character, in terms of what you invest or divest from her. And, again, I simply have no interest in getting in the way of that for you."
It seems that no one wants to give definitive answers about "Tár," but that's kind of the whole point. It's uncomfortable to identify with her when you realize the damage she's done to others, but it's also challenging to write her off completely because she's so compelling and layered. "Tár" forces us to ask ourselves big questions, and for some, there simply are no answers.
Tár's alternate ending
There isn't an alternate ending to "Tár," as far as we know, but a deleted scene did provide some serious insight into her psyche that might have influenced how people viewed the ending. In the deleted scene, it's revealed that Lydia has misophonia, a disorder that causes people to have strong reactions to certain sounds.
Her hearing is incredibly sensitive, which is probably part of what makes her such a talented conductor. It explains why she's so unsettled by some of the sounds in her studio, especially the clicking of the metronome, and it also provides a clue as to why she's so reclusive.
Both of her parents were deaf, which means that Lydia grew up in a world full of sound that her family couldn't understand. It's no excuse for her behavior but helps explain why she has such a difficult time with other people.
"Tár" is a complex, controversial film that forces its audience to sit with uncomfortable truths about power and its ability to corrupt, and its ambiguity is an important part of what makes it work. Trying to pin any objective truths to "Tár" would only render it less potent.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault or is having suicidal thoughts, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). Please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).