Yesterday, we went to our second movie in two weeks, and our second in two years, all at the same time. Last week, mid-week, we saw The Fabelmans in a virtually empty theater. Yesterday, week-end, we saw Tar in a surprisingly crowded one.

After seeing Tar, I read several reviews. And I have to confess that I don’t understand them. Yes, this is the story of the fall from grace of a world renown orchestral conductor. And, yes, Cate Blanchett does a memorable job in a demanding role. But (and I will try to limit spoilers a bit), what I thought (and I think Edie by and large agrees) is that Tar is a film geared to disbelief and unreality, while the critics all seem to take for granted that Lydia (the Blanchett character) is a realistic persona, and that, except for the fact the film is fiction, Tar could be a biopic. Come on…The writer/director Todd Field has said that he wrote this film for Cate Blanchett and if she said she didn’t want to play Lydia, the film would have been dropped. I believe that, because this was clearly her film. Every other character was relatively minor, and we only know the other characters in relationship to Lydia. I have no problem with that.

But this was no pseudo-biopic. This was a satire.

The film starts with several minutes of credits, one crowded screen after another after another. Now, my eyes (my age aside) are pretty good, but I couldn’t make out the names. They seemed blurry. Then Edie nudged me and said something like “My eyes just aren’t good. I can’t read the names.”

Then, throughout the film, so many of the lines, especially when they were two person conversations, were unintelligible. They were muffled, actors dropping second syllables, and the ends of sentences. And so much whispering. Could anyone hear the whispering? Now my ears may not be as good as my eyes, and often I will miss a line watching something, but it’s usually a question of processing, not of decibel level, I think. I know Tar is available streaming, but still, it appears, for an expensive rental charge. Are all these lines subtitled in the streaming version, or do some of them say “unintelligible” or “indistinct”?

So, now we have blurred credits and muffled dialogue. To me those are signs of purposeful lack of reality. Then there are other clues: like Lydia’s resume, as announced by Adam Gopnik before he interviews her. She has done everything. Gone to and taught classes at every major music conservatory. Conducted every major orchestra (she is currently conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic) in the universe. Written extensively. Won Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, everything. And even spent 5 years deep in the Amazon jungle of Peru living with and studying an imaginary tribe with an extremely long name. Impossible.

And then who is Lydia? Where did she come from? A sophisticated lady, obviously worldly, with an obvious sense of noblesse oblige, but at the same time with a temper ready to lash out at the world. But there is no back story, whatsoever. She just is there. Then – at her nadir – she runs home, a wreck, to her childhood house on Staten Island, and runs into her brother (who looks like a sewer worker from the Jackie Gleason show, and who wants nothing to do with the famous sister he hasn’t seen for decades). Impossible. It is no more possible that Lydia Tar could have grown up in this Staten Island house than it is that I grew up in Buckingham Palace.

And look at the last scene – conducting an orchestra in a country that looks like it must be Thailand (but is not named) when the entire audience is in Monster Hunter costume (who even knows what Monster Hunter is?)? How can anyone think this is serious? Or possible?

Sure, the issues of sexual grooming are important ones. And in pointing out the dangers involved, the film provides a service. Sure, the issues involving kowtowing to celebrities are important, and here the film provides a service.

But it is done in context of a satire which none of the critics seem to acknowledge. Am I (are we?) wrong? One more thing – at the end of the film, the credits are repeated, the letters the same size, but everything readable with no trouble. Nothing blurred now – that’s because the film is over. And it is satire no more.

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Moving for a second to another dream. Last night, I was given a black bag that contained $600,000 cash. I was a government agent, and needed to use this $600,000 as the first payment for something very important to my country. I was given the cash, I was told, because there was no other way to transfer this particular amount of money. And of course I needed to protect this bag. My country was not a rich one.

I was very careful with it. I kept it with me on a train. When my hotel room was not yet available, I kept it with me, though I checked my other luggage.

I knew I had some time before getting into my room. I went out on the street, saw a deli, went in and bought a bagel and lox. It was raining, and I sat outside under an eave. My sister (not my real sister) was there eating lunch with someone, with whom she was talking about the fate of our country. My bagel was good, but then. I talked with them, but then realized that I was not welcome in this conversation.

Then it hit me. Where was the black bag and the $600,000? I no longer had it. It must be in the deli. I ran back to the deli. On the floor in front of the counter – there it was. All is well.