soundchaser wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 3:03 pm
I think that's fair, in the sense that Lydia is clearly not a "good" person at all times. But I would argue that there are counter-balance moments to the ones you mentioned here: and that, importantly, some of the choices you cite are built out of love for her daughter. I don't know that it's humanist, per se, but the film does a good job of making it explorable.
Well I don't believe in "good" v "bad" people so I agree that the counter-balance moments are necessary to stomach this at all and contribute to its ethos, which as I stressed isn't uniformly humanist, but more interesting and fair: pitching humanism vs some outcomes-based philosophy of behavior like utilitarianism, with the humility not to pretend like there's a reductionist solution to arrive at a faux-summation of a human being's identity, worth, or soul. That's all great! The problem is that I agree with you- the film does a good job of indicating that this is explorable material- but.. I don't think it explores what it sets up at all. That feels like a cop-out, and the cinematic equivalent of an incontestable argument of devils advocacy via phantom commitments; where if challenged on its lack of commitment to its emotional undercurrent of subjectivity, the answer is that it's too complex to be spoonfed to us and that we can't really 'know' her at all, but if challenged on its lack of commitment to its objective detachment, the answer is that she's obviously vulnerable and loves her daughter etc. That may all be true, but I think the film is trying to have its cake and eat it too without making choices (actually, now that I write that, I think Grady's ethos regarding a writer's primary responsibility to "make choices" from
Wonder Boys is an appropriate launching pad for criticism here).
To use the most interesting aspect of the movie we both singled out (and its heart, though I'm not convinced the film knows it, and is a failure for obfuscating this significant point because it itself neglects the neglected character in favor of the one doing the neglecting without modeling itself on her psyche as a form of critique or critiquing her in this specific area from an objective position- either would do just fine): Yes, Lydia may love her daughter- but the idea that the film convinces itself the way Tar convinces herself of this without self-consciousness to its reflexivity- is problematic, and that's before accounting for the elisions that cast doubt on the value of this love altogether. More pointedly, the film seems convinced that its examples of Tar's behaviors on behalf of her daughter are 'enough' to counter the clearer examples of neglect; not oust the opposition, but coexist to form a conflict of some equity. This bothers me, not just because I think they're self-indulgent and vapid, but because Field don't acknowledge their nature as he presents them is abstract in reference to the more tangible effects of neglect. I 'get' that he's pitching the abstract unknowability and complex innards of a person against the friction of outcomes-based consequences of the external environment as an overall portrait of Blanchett's humanity vs The World, but it's disingenuous to give different rules to Blanchett vs her daughter within the internal logic of a micro-level parental relationship as far as where the value lies (again, unless of course we're blended with Blanchett's pov, which we are not). Blanchett can then have her cake and eat it too any way you slice it. The film doesn't recognize this, and within its own film grammar, aligns itself with Blanchett in this automatic-win power dynamic against all else, and that's unfair when you're dealing with a relationship that's blatantly neglectful but also "loving" and asking the audience to weigh these on fair ground. Field is manipulating these variables and holding them to different rules in how he approaches them, and all as a consequence of reaching too far and wide with the scope of his intentions. It caves in on itself and reads as "one note" to people like myself when I believe there's nuance there just begging to be delivered more honestly and, frankly, bravely.
I think there's a great movie in there somewhere that acknowledges the neglect just a bit more obviously and also layers evidence that Tar cares for her daughter as more than just a piece of window dressing or vehicle to make her feel better about herself and achieve a marker of the American Dream she fantasized when she was growing up in an environment that alienated her and didn't support her genius, and then actualized over the course of a long career of resiliency and understandable ego-inflation. There's even a film in there that dares to recognize more concretely that in western cultures such as these, with ideals of personal excellence hailed as diamond lives above all else, it's 'normal' for a parent such as Tar to have a relationship with her child that is intrinsically and inescapably going to be rooted partially in conceit. A film like that could draw from the well of sadness pertaining to the incongruity of where each party in this relationship needs to give and get their love from, and feed into the collective consciousness of pain regarding the current hot (and very real) topic of generational trauma. But it doesn't do any of that, and I believe that it believes that it is succeeding in charitably addressing their relationship dynamic. I think it's an interesting concept to drop us off at this stage for Tar, giving us peripheral nods to how she wasn't always this way and keep them elided so as not to risk them usurping her current actions in 'today' with intrusive sentimentality. That's an admirable play. But I do think the relationship with the daughter is the key to unlocking the film, and Field is trying to engage with this relationship in a manner that doesn't compute with his overall approach outside of it.