The Fabelmans will never be fought over like Tár, but it has far more to say about the joy of art | Charlotte Higgins

Dark obsession dominates in films about music. By contrast Spielberg captures the playfulness of cinema and storytelling

For a film that has, if you want to be blunt about it, tanked at the box office, Tar has provoked a disproportionate amount of conversation. It's possible that the discourse around the film - about a powerful, highly successful and extremely problematic conductor called Lydia Tar, played by Cate Blanchett - is as interesting as the film itself.

I've heard multiple, conflicting interpretations of Tar: that it's a disgraceful misrepresentation of the field of classical music; that it's all too real; that it's all too surreal; that it carries an intellectual heft that is rare at the movies; that it's not half as clever as it thinks it is; that it's not about conducting, it's about power; that it's not about power, it's about narcissism; that it's about a clash of ethics between the generations; that it's about third-wave feminism; that its central character, in all her unlikeability", is arrestingly complex; that its central character is irredeemably hateful; that it's a fascinating, even-handed anatomisation of cancel culture"; that it is actually a regressive" movie that takes bitter aim" at identity politics. Then there is an extensive online debate devoted to decoding its eerie final act. There's something exciting about a film that is such an open text, that demands so much discussion.