The 95th Academy Awards ceremony is creeping up quickly, and from the looks of the nominations, Todd Field’s Tár has emerged as one of the strongest contestants this year. 

Set in the highly exclusive world of classical music, Cate Blanchett leads the ship as Lydia Tár, a larger than life American composer. The weight of Tár as a person is felt, as the first female conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. The most commonly googled question while watching the film has to be, “is Lydia Tár a real person?”, which of course she isn’t, but it’s an understandable question. The specificity of this one character is the lifeblood of the film, as the camera follows Lydia through a detailed chapter of her life. Her powerful presence is introduced in the opening scene in which Lydia is interviewed for the New Yorker in an interview that she confidently takes on. After this, the truer aspects of her character are revealed, such as her manipulation of her loyal assistant Francesca and Lydia’s patient wife Sharon. Tár’s journey is a strangely contemporary one, as her status as a worldwide celebrity is celebrated until her image starts to become muddled, due to her actions catching up to her. 

Blanchett is being marked as the leading force in the movie, with the name BLANCHETT just smaller than TÁR on the poster, which is entirely deserved. Her role received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, which locked her in the front place race against Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once. 

Other than Blanchett as Tár, the atmosphere created around the mythical titular character enhances her strange journey. As the viewer is taken into Tár’s daily life, they are also introduced to the inner guilt that lives inside of her and manifests in the real world. An unseen incident is frequently referred to in the film, in which a young woman named Krista tried to force her way into Lydia’s life before committing suicide. As the film progresses, more details are uncovered about the past, at the same time as Lydia’s new escapades with a beautiful young concert cellist continue to mess up her personal life. In multiple scenes, a phone screen is visible recording Tár in personal moments without her knowledge. The film indulges in this ghostly conspiracy as soon the cold depiction of the world starts communicating with her through distant screams and impossible visions. 

March 12th is the Oscars, and Tár will be sure to have some kind of night, showing up at the door with six nominations, including Best Picture. Lydia Tár is chilling over at Peacock, available to stream right now.