Tár | 2022 | R | – 5.4.5

Why is “Tár” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “some language and brief nudity.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a few kissing and hugging scenes, discussions of sexual impropriety, non-sexual female nudity, a physical altercation that results in a man with a bloody nose after being punched in the face, facial wounds incurred after a fall on a flight of stairs, a woman threatening a child after the child bullied the woman’s daughter, many arguments, and 6 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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When the conductor (Cate Blanchett) of the Berlin Philharmonic is poised to perform Mahler’s 5th and likely be celebrated for her talent, past indiscretions haunt her and lead to her replacement before the performance. Also with Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Sophie Kauer, Adam Gopnik, Mark Strong and Alec Baldwin. Directed by Todd Field. Several lines of dialogue are spoken in German, Filipino and French and some are accompanied by English subtitles and others are without translation. [Running Time: 2:38]

Tár SEX/NUDITY 5

 – A woman pulls off her nightshirt (we see her bare breasts, abdomen and side) and washes her arms and legs after helping an elderly woman off the floor and onto a toilet. An elderly woman is shown collapsed on the floor with a strap around her waist and otherwise fully nude (we see her bare breasts, back, buttocks and legs) as she is helped onto a toilet. A woman showers and we see her bare back and shoulders. A woman is shown wearing a sports bra in a doctor’s exam room and we see cleavage. A young woman wears a low-cut dress that reveals cleavage. A shirtless man sits on the roof of a bus (we see his bare shoulders, chest and abdomen).
► During a suit and shirt fitting a woman is measured with a measuring tape across her clothed breasts by a man. Two women kiss tenderly and one places her hand on the other’s chest.
► A woman dreams of a young woman holding and caressing her. Two women hug and dance slowly together. Two women hug and one kisses the other on the cheek to comfort her. A woman touches another woman’s bare foot with hers while arranging albums spread out on a floor. A woman touches a young woman’s face tenderly.
► It appears that a young woman working as a woman’s assistant is attracted to her. A woman looks at a young woman and they smile at each other flirtatiously; the woman’s partner notices and seems alarmed. A woman watches a doctored video of several interactions between herself and students that imply sexual impropriety.
► After discovering that a woman traveled to New York with a young woman, the woman’s partner asks her, “Did you have fun with her?” A newspaper article implies that a woman has “groomed” her pupils. A young man talks about a man having “sired like 20 kids.” A woman discusses a man’s wife leaving him and that he married another woman. A woman describes a young woman’s facial gestures while playing the cello as looking like she is “On the verge of climaxing.” Protestors and press a crowd around a woman and a young woman when they get out of a car; a photo caption reads, “Fresh meat,” implying a relationship between them.

Tár VIOLENCE/GORE 4

 – A woman charges toward a conductor on a stage and knocks him off the podium; she calls for the musicians and they turn away, a man reaches for the woman and she punches him hard in the face knocking him to the stage (we see blood on his face and drops on his shirt); she then kicks him and security guards take her off the stage. A woman follows the sound of a voice singing in an abandoned apartment building, she walks through dark hallways, hears something running behind her, sees a dog at a distance and we hear it growl; she runs away and up a flight of stairs before tripping and hitting her face on the ground (we see her with a bloody and swollen face later).
► A woman pounds on another woman’s apartment door and asks for help; we see an elderly woman on the floor in the first woman’s apartment and the second woman helps lift her onto the toilet (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details). A woman goes to pick her daughter up from school and her partner takes her away from her. Protestors and press crowd around a woman and a young woman when they get out of a car; a photo caption reads, “Fresh meat.”
► A woman in a car speeds through streets and swerves between cars causing other drivers to honk and her passenger to yell for her to slow down or let her out; the woman pulls the car over and the passenger gets out. A woman holds her chest and complains of her heart racing; she says that she can’t find her blood pressure medication. A woman wakes up with a start in several scenes and walks through her apartment searching for the source of noises; one time she finds a metronome running inside a cabinet and it has a pattern drawn on the front hatch that makes her upset. A woman dreams of people whispering and a young woman holding and caressing her. A woman jogs alone and hears a scream coming from a distance and she follows the sound but does not find anyone. A woman pounds on another woman’s apartment door and asks if she has seen her newspaper; she seems very upset that it is missing. A woman searches for a book missing from her library shelf and calls someone to have them look in her office. A woman punches a punching bag in a gym hard in rapid succession a couple of times and hand pads worn by a sparring partner or trainer another time.
► A woman speaks to a young girl in a schoolyard, telling her that she is another girl’s father and threatens, “I’ll get you” (if she were to bully her daughter again). A woman tells another woman that a young woman committed suicide; the second woman tells her to delete all of their correspondence. A woman delivering a lecture confronts a student about why he chose a piece of music to conduct and ridicules him for his aversion to Bach because he is a straight white guy; the young man takes his stuff and leaves the lecture hall upset and calls her names. A woman opens a package that contains a book and when she opens the book, she sees a pattern drawn on the title page that upsets her; she tears out the page and shoves the page and the book into a garbage slot in the bathroom. A newspaper article accuses a woman of blocking professional posts for a young woman and she declares that the young woman was disturbed and fixated on her. A young girl calls out in the night for a woman to come and hold her foot to help her go back to sleep. A woman confronts her partner and says she is upset because the woman did not warn her that their family was in danger. A woman describes a conductor using a staff while conducting and pounding it on the stage; he then accidentally stabbed himself in the foot with the staff and died from gangrene. A woman describes that a man threw a woman down a flight of stairs and that she sued him. A woman asks if she can swim in a river and a guide with her says that she shouldn’t because there are crocodiles and says they escaped from a Marlon Brando movie and survived. A woman is told by a group of people representing the Berlin Orchestra that “accusations have been made.” A woman says that she is going to rotate a man out of his job with an orchestra and says, “He’s getting old.” A woman says, “We are all capable of murder.” A woman says that a young woman “has issues.” A woman says that a musician “Asked if I was a Jew.” A woman says of a man, “He’s a strange guy,” and mentions “fetishes.” A woman tells a young man not to be so quick to be a dissident. A woman tells a young woman that she is hedging and must be able to speak her mind. A woman says that her young daughter is “disappearing into herself” and that she comes home from school with bruises on her shins. A woman says of another woman, “She wasn’t one of us.” We see several emails between a woman and other people sharing information about a young woman’s “strange behavior” and that she would be “wholly unsuited” for a position; we later see messages from the young woman sounding desperate about her circumstances and that no one will hire her. A man seems nervous in several scenes and clicks his pen repeatedly; in one scene, a woman puts the pen in her pocket. A woman and a man argue and the man accuses her of granting “little favors,” and she becomes upset about him questioning her integrity. A man talks about conductors being pulled from the podium for inappropriate behavior with pupils. A young woman screams and yells in excitement. A woman flinches when another woman touches her on the shoulder and she says, “It burns”; we later hear that the sensation is caused by a nerve and the doctor says she needs an adjustment. A woman plays an accordion and sings words that mock a family across the hall.
► Several scenes show a woman preparing to go onstage as conductor of an orchestra and she repeats several gestures like wiping her shoulders and touching her nose. A woman makes a raspberry sound while talking to another woman. A woman asks for a place to get a massage and when she arrives she is told to pick a number (we see many young women wearing numbers on their robes); the woman seems unnerved, rushes out of the building and vomits in the street (we see goo).

Tár LANGUAGE 5

 – About 6 F-words, 4 sexual references, 1 scatological term, 3 anatomical terms, 6 mild obscenities, 1 derogatory term for Black people, name-calling (dog act, porn star, ball-breaker, scold, noise, millennial fringe, hatchet job, cruel, transactional, two faced little [mild obscenity deleted], poor thing, unorthodox, criminal, ghettoized, depressing, spectacle, atonal, vague, human metronome, freak, cretin, boring, robot), exclamations (whatever, leave me alone, oh no, I dare say), 9 religious exclamations (e.g. honest to God, God, Jesus, thank God). | profanity glossary |

Tár SUBSTANCE USE

 – A woman takes a prescription pill on an airplane (it’s not clear what it is for), a woman takes a pill for her blood pressure, and a woman is handed a prescription package when she arrives at her hotel. A man drinks a glass of champagne or wine with a meal, and a woman pours two glasses of wine and she and another woman drink.

Tár DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Celebrity, power, EGOT winner, self-consciousness, social media, type-casting, noise sensitivity, hope, desperation, suicide, betrayal, sexual identity, labor contracts, love, starting over, hiding out, starting over, sexual impropriety, denazification, International Women’s Day, interpretation of music, gender bias.

Tár MESSAGE

 – Celebrity and fame cannot get you out of all problems.