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If there’s one thing I love about movies, it’s the perfect line of dialogue. I adore lines that thoroughly encapsulate everything you need to know about a character or succinctly summarize the theme of a film itself. For example, one of my favorite movie lines of all time is “Ask me things, please,” from the movie Carol. It’s a striking moment of vulnerability for the title character – played by Cate Blanchett – and it reveals the neediness underneath her pristine exterior. “I seem to be unraveling,” which is from The Hours, a movie about three women who are in fact unraveling, is a perfect line delivered exquisitely by the great Meryl Streep.¹

Recently, we have been gifted with another line of dialogue that seems to have stuck with audiences long after they leave the theater.² The film in question is TÁR, which also happens to star Cate Blanchett. Blanchett plays Lydia Tár, a renowned composer and conductor who leads the Berlin Philharmonic. Lydia (or simply Tár, as she is referred to in the script), is a wildly successful artist, but things start to go downhill for her when a series of allegations of misconduct from students and colleagues are made public. TÁR, then, is a film about power, corruption, and what is lost in the search for greatness. 

The best line in TÁR is deceptively simple. Lydia has a daughter with her wife, Sharon (Nina Hoss). The child is named Petra, and when Petra complains about a girl at school who’s been bullying her, Lydia takes matters into her own hands. While dropping off Petra at school, Lydia confronts the bully – a prissy-looking girl by the name of Johanna – and puts the fear of God in her (literally). She tells Johanna that she’ll “get” her if she ever bullies Petra again, and that if she tries to report Lydia’s threats to anyone, they won’t believe her. 

The most striking line in this scene is Lydia’s greeting. “I’m Petra’s father,” she says as she walks up to Johanna. Like many scenes in the film, it’s quite funny, but it’s not clear whether you should be laughing or grimacing. The line is delivered in German, which gives it an extra oomph, if you will, as German can often sound quite aggressive to non-speakers. As we learn more and more about Lydia’s abhorrent behavior, this scene represents a small instance of malice that eventually builds into larger and larger ones. In this scene, though, it’s hard not to root for Lydia as she takes down the bully, even if her methods are needlessly harsh.

But let’s return to the line in question. “I’m Petra’s father” is a deceptively complex line of dialogue, signaling a multitude of functions in just three words. The most obvious connotation is how the line signifies Lydia’s relationship to gender. Lydia is a lesbian – or in her own flippant words, a “U-haul lesbian” – but this aspect of her identity doesn’t seem especially meaningful to her, apart from the fact that the victims of her abuse tend to be women. Lydia sees herself as being above identity politics and doesn’t think art should be defined by an artist’s actions or personal history, as she rather rudely tells one of her students. It seems unlikely, then, that Lydia claiming the label of “father” is some sort of political statement or a reclamation of the word for lesbian parents. 

That’s not to say that gender doesn’t factor into Lydia’s life, because it certainly does. Lydia is quite a masculine character. She’s primarily shown wearing pants, collared shirts, and other styles of masculine dress, and her physical comportment leans much more masculine than feminine. She has an incredibly domineering personality, something that isn’t surprising considering the fact that all her musical heroes are men. There don’t seem to be any women she really looks up to, and the only woman she is actually close to is her wife, and she doesn’t seem to respect her all that much either. Considering how gender does (or doesn’t) play out in her own life, it seems logical then that she would adopt the patriarchal moniker of “father.”

Though Lydia is certainly aware of her own womanhood, she consistently refuses to concede the fact that it has had any effect on her life. The film begins with Lydia speaking at an event for the New Yorker, where the interviewer asks her if she’s ever experienced discrimination on the basis of her gender. She responds in the negative and continues to disregard any notion of gender imbalance as the film progresses. Later in the film, she suggests to a colleague that they start accepting men into a program meant exclusively for women musicians. “We’ve made our point,” she says dismissively. 

Lydia is someone who is very invested in power as it has been historically wielded by men, and her masculine behavior seems to be a natural outcropping of this investment. She has a very capitalistic mindset – as evidenced by the aforementioned concession – and her style of leadership is entirely autocratic. She is a narcissist and her ego takes up the entire room, leaving little space for others to exert their will. When she refers to herself as Petra’s father while speaking to the bully, this feels like a clear instance of Lydia enveloping herself in the power of masculinity and maleness, even as she claims, time and time again, that gender is irrelevant. 

Lydia’s relationship with parenthood is one of the most unexpected elements in the film. As Sharon bites out at Lydia during an argument, her relationship with Petra is the only relationship in her life that is not in some way transactional. Petra may be the one character in the film that proves to us that Lydia is not wholly a monster, and that she does have the ability to care for someone when that care is not predicated on getting something in return. The film is not interested in redeeming Lydia, but it does leave room for nuance, which is something her relationship with Petra allows for. 

It may seem, at least on the surface, that Lydia does not “use” her gender in the way that women are commonly understood to do so in order to get ahead. And yet, gender still comes into play here. For one, her womanhood means our defenses are lowered in regard to the pervasiveness of her manipulative behavior, and we might even find ourselves, at least at first, looking for something to admire about her. Lydia also tends to play the victim, something we see quite clearly when she falls over while running and tells everyone she was attacked in an effort to gain sympathy. 

But, during the scene in question, Lydia’s intentions are the exact opposite. When she tells Johanna “I’m Petra’s father,” she’s harnessing patriarchal power in order to instill fear and assert her dominance. It’s an effective strategy, and it also reveals a lot about how Lydia sees herself and her position in the order of things. “I’m Petra’s father” is more than a line – it’s a mantra.