Why Tár Will Win Best Picture

'Tis but a few days until the Oscars, and for the second consecutive year-- but just the third time ever! -- no less than 10 films are ramping up their campaigns in a last-minute push for the top prize of them all, Best Picture. The biggest award has the potential to be either one of the most anticlimactic or most surprising result in recent years. The former is true, because one film has won the vast majority of the top prizes on the awards circuit thus far, the buzzy Everything Everywhere All At Once. However, not only would the multiverse comedy with a big heart and primarily Asian cast be a wildly abnormal winner, few if any other top contenders are traditional 'Oscar bait,' and none are without its detractor.

Those facts, as well as the Oscars' less predictable preferential voting system means that no nominee can truly be counted out of the race. Spotlight's and Moonlight's back-to-back upsets in 2016 and 2017, Parasite's stunner in 2020, and CODA's late surge last year all taught us to expect the unexpected, so we're here to give fans of all 10 nominees reason to believe on Sunday the 12th.

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I recently had a conversation with a coworker about personal taste in movies. I was asked a question that I hadn’t really considered before: “Why do you like the movies you like?” I fumbled for a satisfactory answer as I tried to tie together movies like Sicario, Michael Clayton, Heat, and A Ghost Story. What does the Venn Diagram of Inglourious Basterds, Moneyball, and Phantom Thread even look like?

I’ve been thinking about that question a lot in the weeks since, and while I still can’t put my finger on a well-defined answer, I know that Tár fits in with the cohort of movies that fills my undefined mental rubric.

There is a precision to the film that is hard to articulate. The cinematography is pristine and exacting, much like the film’s namesake, Lydia Tár. The production design is also incredibly precise. When you watch a film like Tár, it is comforting to know you are in the hands of a director like Todd Field, who very much knows what they are doing.

It usually doesn’t take long to figure this out. With Tár, that breakpoint comes about 20 minutes in, when Lydia is speaking to a class at Juilliard. A few moments into the scene, you realize there hasn’t been a cut. The camera effortlessly floats around the room, and lets us in on a terrifying display of power dynamics. And from there, Tár takes off, but in its own, unique way. Lydia Tár has it all, and is still on the ascent. But then it all comes slowly crashing down around her, as her hold on the variables that surround her and prop her up all fall away, one by one.

A story like this couldn’t be told without the right performer, and Cate Blanchette fully inhabits the titular character. She always seems to perfectly pitch her performance for the moment. Her performance was an early favorite for Best Actress, but she has seemingly been caught by Michelle Yeoh as award season has rolled on.

While Blanchette has dropped back from her pole position, Tár has also lost pace to Yeoh's surging Everything Everywhere All At Once. And while it may be outside of the main players for Best Picture (currently sitting at 6th according to Bovada), it has the pedigree of a Best Picture winner. It’s a film that forces Hollywood to consider the trappings of questionable power dynamics that have been a silent part of the industry for far too long. Tár could win as a response to the industry, by the industry to show that they are taking the idea of power seriously. A win for Tár could be a signal of real understanding. Or, alternatively, simply recognition of a truly great film.