The highly praised new drama Tár is written, directed, and produced by Todd Field. With a long career as an actor and producer, he’s directed only three films so far, over many years: two previous prestigious dramas, In the Bedroom in 2001 and Little Children in 2006, and now sixteen years later, there’s Tár, which looks likely to be the most rapturously received one yet.

The film is beautifully shot in elegant neutral tones and features a slow, thoughtful, careful approach to contentious subject matter. It stars the always elegant and compelling Cate Blanchett in a tour de force performance as Lydia Tár , an internationally famous composer and conductor whose career and personal life implode when accusations of abusive behavior toward students and staff — as well as the sexual grooming of young women in exchange for advancement in the orchestra — result in her “cancelation.”