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Notes on a Scandal

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3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Notes on a Scandal is a gripping, captivating story of two lonely women and the ragged way they fall in and out of love. Sheba, a young art teacher, who falls into a torrid affair with a 15-year-old student, ostensibly because of the disappointment and difficulties in her family life. Then Barbara, an older history teacher, who takes Sheba under her wing--or so she thinks--and is the first to know her secret. The way this story unravels is enthralling and hard to watch, but at the same time I couldn't take my eyes away from the screen. I found myself sympathizing with Sheba, though I knew her actions were wrong, because I could understand the ache of loneliness one must feel when you begin to wonder if you've made the wrong choices in your life. Similarly, though the seemingly benevolent Barbara eventually turns out to have a cruel streak, I found myself empathizing for her lack of companionship and the fact that she seemed so completely alone. Notes on a Scandal is a story about loneliness, the banality of cruelty, and the harsh reality of living and accepting the choices you've made. It's an excellent film and kept me entertained from start to finish.

This grim drama of sexual manipulation is a story where almost everyone is a victim. Judi Dench (Barbara) plays the chilling role of the lonely spinster teacher who befriends young women with the goal of possessing them. Cate Blanchett (Sheba) is a dreamy, artistic young mother, who, after years of caring for a Down's Syndrome son, goes back to work as an art teacher at a rough London school. Barbara trains her sights on Sheba as she struggles with the chaos in the school and helps her out, but then discovers a secret to hold over her.

Judi Dench manages to portray a woman who is despicable and pitiable at the same time, while Blanchett draws on our sympathy despite unforgivable transgressions. The themes are very disturbing, and there's no happy ending--Barbara moves on while the other characters pick up the pieces. Blanchett's young art student may be the only one to emerge unscathed--but I won't say more. This film is most definitely for adults only, and some will be offended by the subject matter. But Dench gives a magnificent performance, as always.

One of the more critically lauded pictures of 2006, I was primarily interested in "Notes on a Scandal" for its Oscar nominated screenplay by Patrick Marber. Previously having brought "Closer" to the screen, I was eager to see his follow up. I know "Closer" had its detractors--but for me the writing was scathingly funny and refreshingly adult. And the concept behind "Notes" also sounded intriguingly grown-up. Let's be honest--who wouldn't want to see Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench square off? Emotionally and physically, this could be a battle of two of our most respected actresses. And while I did admire much of the film, the thing that ultimately disappointed me was the screenplay--and the aspects of character motivation that it doesn't bother to address.

"Scandal" introduces us to Blanchett, a new art teacher at the local high school. Awkward to her new position, she is something of a joke to a more experienced faculty member (played by Dench). Dench is a stern disciplinarian, and one day assists Blanchett with a confrontation. Captivated by the naivete of the new teacher, Dench takes her under her wing. Forming a personal friendship, Dench even visits Blanchett's home and spends time with her family. Clearly yearning for an even closer friendship, Dench is startled to discover Blanchett is carrying on a sexual liaison with one of her students. Instead of turning her in, though, she uses the knowledge to gain psychological control over Blanchett. What follows is a battle of wills as the truth begins to emerge--both about the scandal and about Dench's ulterior motives.

I certainly think that "Notes On a Scandal" is a good movie bolstered by strong performances. I don't think, however, that it's quite as perfect as some people would make out. Blanchett's Sheba is such a superficial character--right down to the artificiality, the staginess, of her name. Blanchett does what she can to make the character appealing, but in no way do we ever really understand her motivations. Her casual indifference to putting her family and livelihood on the line is never explained, and we aren't invited to see anything deeper than what the character puts out for the rest of the world. Why is she married to a man old enough to be her father? What keeps her involved in teaching when it seems an uncomfortable fit? Why would this seemingly lovely woman, with a happy (by all appearances) home life, sacrifice everything to commit a crime? Why does she willfully engage in an act society would judge as morally reprehensible? Keeping Sheba an enigma didn't ruin the film for me, but it did keep me at arm's length. Lacking a basic understanding of the "scandal" referenced in the title definitely kept this entertaining film from being "great" and insightful--at least to me.

Judi Dench does have a field day, however. Rarely cast in a villainous light, Dench really sinks her teeth into this meaty role. Without make-up and looking every bit her age, it's a vanity free performance. At first, dismissive and condescending to her new colleague, she lights up at a potential friendship with Sheba. Then when the scandal breaks, she takes it as a great opportunity to insinuate herself even further into Sheba's life. The undertones of attraction and loathing are well played, and her menace increases as her desire to control Sheba becomes more apparent. I recommend "Notes" not as high art--but as a study in conflicting acting styles, and to see two great actresses go head to head. Like Crawford and Davis in "Baby Jane," I was more fascinated by performance than film. But that said, "Notes" is still a good movie--it just had the potential to be of much greater emotional impact with stronger psychological implications. KGHarris, 02/07.

For all it is an entry into the "girlfriend/ temp/ babysitter/ boyfriend/ roommate/ etc. from hell" films of the late 80s and early 90s (such as FATAL ATTRACTION, THE TEMP, SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, FEAR), NOTES ON A SCANDAL is still a terrific and excitingly paced melodrama showing two splendid actresses--Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett--at their absolute best. Dench is a fire-breathing older woman teaching history in a London public school who has a hidden history of stalking and erotomania; Blanchett is the new art teacher, unable to handle a classroom, escaping from her incredible family demands (incluiding a son with Down's syndrome) who befriends Dench and starts having an affair with a manipulative 15 year-old student. When Dench develops an obsession with Blanchett, and discovers the affair, the sparks really fly, and the movie builds at an even more breathtaking pace. There's not much point to the film (other than that all single people in the film seem determine to wreck Blanchett's marriage), but who cares when you can see two actresses as fine as Dench and Blanchett work so splendidly. Dench has a role here perfectly within her range as the rebarbarative and covetous Barbara Covett; Blanchett (as always) seems like you've never seen her before, this time as Bathsheba Hart, Covett's beautiful prey. The overdramatic score by Philip Glass is less obstrusive than it might have been given the tremendous scale of these two actresses' performances.

NOTES ON A SCANDAL invites the audience to read the diary of a very lonely, crusty, frumpy, acerbic history teacher Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) through the voice-over narrative throughout this challenging, harsh, but very brave cinematic version on the novel 'What Was She Thinking: Notes on a Scandal' by Zoe Heller, brilliantly adapted for the screen by Patrick Marber. It is a success on every level - story, direction, cinematography, and especially acting.

Barbara Covett (Dench) is a fierce disciplinarian in a school populated by children who are more interested in drugs and misbehavior than in learning. She has no life except with her aging cat Portia, spending her lonely hours away from the classroom making entries into a journal. Into this icy atmosphere comes a new art teacher, the luminously beautiful free-spirited Sheba (very significantly short for Bathsheba!) Hart (Cate Blanchett). Barbara notices Sheba's presence at first with critical disdain then with fascination: Sheba is new to teaching, having 'wasted' her life as a potential artist by marrying too early her senior teacher Richard (Bill Nighy) and mothering two children, teenage Polly (Juno Temple) and Down's Syndrome Ben (Max Lewis), and now wanting to make something interesting of her life. Sheba enters into an affair with 15-year-old Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson), a lad who wins her attention first through sympathy ploy for his 'bad home life' and eventually conquers her better judgment by paying physical attention and gratification to her. Barbara secretly observes the couple en flagrant and lets her new friend know of her discovery of an act that is criminal.

The manner in which Barbara gains Sheba's attention by keeping Sheba's explosively dangerous behavior a shared secret leads to a fulfillment of Barbara's wish to not spend her life alone: she is in love with Sheba and will stop at nothing to have Sheba to herself. But when Sheba is unable to stop her sensual dalliance with Steven, Barbara begins a course of events that leads to destruction of all kinds. The journal entries tell it all in scrupulous detail.

The entire cast is superb, much to the credit of director Richard Eyre (Stage Beauty, Iris, The Ploughman's Lunch, and multiple television adaptations of classics). His sense of pacing the action is overwhelmingly fine. For this viewer the musical score by the gifted Philip Glass is successful in maintaining tension, but is far more mundane than his other scores and composing - and the music drowns the dialog far too often. But this is a minor flaw when compared to the intelligent, sensitive, subtle, completely credible performances by both Dench and Blanchett. They are the epitome of fine actors and watching them work is an awe-inspiring pleasure. The film deals with difficult subject matter but succeeds in steering clear of sensationalism to present the sad inner lives of two disparate yet similar women. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, April 07

The story of this film is an illicit affair had by a new teacher at a school played by Blanchett. Add to this an older lesbian teacher played by Dench who fancies Blanchett's character. The sparks start to fly when Dench becomes aware of Blanchett's affair with a 15 year old pupil at the school and becomes confidente and manipulator of Blanchett to achieve her own ends. Blanchett is married to a much older man and has a handicapped child as well to add to the complexity.
The screenplay to this film is stunning. It was written by Patrick Marber who is more well known for acting and co-writing the script of the Alan Partridge character on BBC television.
Anyway, this film belongs to Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench. They are both wonderful actresses. Dench just shades it for her ability to convey sympathy in the audience for her character. We realise that loneliness is a terrible thing and that it is a human need to have companionship regardless of the extreme lengths that people will go to achieve it.

I think the Battle Of The Brits for Best Actress at this years Oscars was an unfair contest. Helen Mirren won for The Queen. This was a marginal performance compared to the towering performance of Dame Judi Dench in this film.

"Notes on a Scandal" stars Judi Dench as Barbara Covett, a lonely self-proclaimed "battleaxe" who teaches history at St. George's. When her attention is caught by the inexperienced teaching novice Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), Barbara is delighted that she's found a new "friend" - until she learns of the younger woman's affair with a fifteen-year-old pupil, and decides to blackmail Sheba into a situation somewhat more involved than simple friendship.

Directed by Richard Eyre, this surprisingly taut and fast-paced drama feels like much more than its 92 minutes (in the best possible sense) - Dench and Blanchett are to be congratulated on their completely absorbing characterisation and strength of performance. Blanchett's amazing in her role as the spineless, weak-willed Sheba Hart: here is a character guilty of both an extramarital affair and statutory rape, and yet Blanchett's skill as an actress keeps us from being completely alienated from Sheba Harte - on the contrary, there are scenes where we begin to pity her.

Dench is, as you'd expect, completely brilliant in her role as insular, hard-edged Barbara Covett. Devoid of pretty much all glamour, Dench's immersion in her character makes for the most convincing of performances: her terse cruelty in describing Sheba's children or her overweight co-workers is thrown into higher contrast by her palpable grief at the death of her beloved cat Portia. But it's in the scenes where Barbara tries to take control of Sheba's situation that Dench shines brightest, and we're completely in the thrall of this miserable, lonely, manipulative old woman whose delusional sense of love leads her to destroy her only friend.

Strong supporting cast nods go to Bill Nighy as Sheba's bohemian husband Richard, and to the excellent Andrew Simpson as underage Romeo Steven Connolly, and Richard Eyre's superlative direction comes to the fore in the violent, claustrophobic scenes of domestic dispute, or the floaty, dreamlike quality in the school scenes, mirroring Sheba's lust for her pupil or Barbara's infatuation with her colleague.

Direction and performances combine with an insanely clever use of music in the soundtrack to lock us in and keep us hurtling forward towards the film's chilling conclusion, and, like I said before, these 92 minutes will seem like longer - we feel like we've run a marathon along with these women. "Notes on a Scandal" is a superlative drama, and one that you won't be sorry you saw. It handles so many uncomfortable issues - like loneliness, internalised homophobia, obsession, statutory rape and extramarital sex - with such deft ambiguity and fluid confidence (as well as a perfectly pitched sense of humour) that you won't want it to end. This is a film that reminds me why I love films, it's just that good.

If Helen Mirren's given the Best Actress performance of the year in "The Queen" (another outstanding film, yes, but it's a huge shame that "Notes on a Scandal" is only on limited release), Dench is overlooked completely: she's easily the equal of Mirren and she has more ample support here, both before and behind the camera.

I can't recommend this movie highly enough, go and see it quickly before it disappears from theatres.

How can any film with both Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett be bad? And "notes on a Scandal" is very close to being a brilliant thriller.

Barbara Covett (Judi Dench), a longtime history teacher at a private middle school in a London suburb, watches the children return for another year of institutionalized baby sitting. They are a randy lot she generally dislikes. She also notices Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), the new art teacher, arrive and decides to befriend her, help her get through the school year and cope with the rowdy children who are more interested in smoking, fighting and having sex. Sheba returns the favor and invites Barbara to Sunday Lunch. The older teacher is thrilled to have some "alone time" with her new friend and expects a quiet afternoon alone. But she is surprised to find Sheba is married to Richard (Bill Nighy), they have a teenage daughter, Polly (Juno Temple) and a son, Ben (Max Lewis) who has Down 's syndrome. Sheba and Richard invite her into the middle of their lives and Sheba also begins to confide in Barbara, telling her her secrets, her dreams and her disappointments. Barbara secretly hopes for, longs for, something more and when she spots Sheba sleeping with one of her students, Steven Connelly (Andrew Simpson), she suspects she may have found the way to get what she desires.

Written by Patrick Marber ("Closer") and directed by Richard Eyre ("Iris"), "Notes on a Scandal" is the first film in a long time to use thriller elements in a film written by, about and for adults. The characters may make some childish choices, but the filmmakers never treat the audience with the same disdain.

Judi Dench plays perhaps the most repressed Lesbian in film history. As Barbara, she has few friends and little interaction with her family, preferring to spend time at home with her cat and writing in her journal. As she writes extensively in these bound notebooks, reading from them to narrate the film, we learn a little about her previous relationships; she seems attracted to women who don't return her affections. Her relationship with Sheba would probably end in the same way, with court action, but Barbara learns of Sheba's affair with one of her students providing Barbara with a light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps, just perhaps, she might be able to use that to attain the relationship she has so long desired.

It is this desperation, and what happens when things go wrong, that fuels the thriller elements of "Notes". Barbara is so repressed, so desperate, we don't know what she might do to attain this new relationship she craves.

And they way she uses this knowledge works and helps make the film all the more memorable.

Because Barbara provides the narration, reading from her journals, we learn things about her character other people do not know. I found myself watching the film thinking "No, don't do that. Don't you see what she is doing?" This doesn't happen that often. The writing and acting so affected me, I was rooting for certain characters, hoping they would do certain things. And this happened because of the narration. Because we learn things other characters don't know, we become a participant in the story. We can see the mistakes characters are making and hope and wish they will make the right choices because they have become so real we care for them.

Cate Blanchett has the less showy, but no less important role of Sheba. What Blanchett does is make this role so much more than an innocent victim or bystander. Because Sheba so readily tells Barbara all of her secrets, she reveals a lot. She is a bit adrift, needs some companionship, perhaps her marriage and family isn't everything she had hoped for. She essentially gives Barbara everything the older woman thinks she needs to start a relationship. Sheba does this unknowingly, leading to those moments of "Oh no, don't do that", allowing Blanchett to reveal how trusting her character is.

But Sheba isn't a saint. Married to her former professor (Nighy), who is a good twenty years her senior, she has two children. As she states, after ten years of caring for Ben and the rest of the family, she needs new challenges, which leads to the teaching job. Apparently, she also needs new loving, which leads to her affair with Stephen (Simpson), one of her 15 year old students. This affair is portrayed well, thoughtfully and painstakingly. We get a real feel for what draws Sheba to this relationship, why they continue to see each other, what makes it last. It also shows how flawed her character is. The filmmakers challenge us to like her character and we feel for her, sympathy, loathing and even pity.

Blanchett and Dench so completely inhabit their characters it would be difficult to not believe they were real. I have never seen Dench look so dour, so unhappy, so unfulfilled. She looks like she has led an unhappy life and the one time she wears any make-up, it appears completely unnatural to her character. Blanchett appears uncomfortable and vulnerable, unhappy in her own skin. These are two of the best actresses working today, at the height of their craft and skills.

Bill Nighy is also very good. He is usually cast in flamboyant, jokey roles, like the fading rock singer in "Love, Actually"; he is a bit like the British Christopher Walken, but he can take on challenging dramatic roles. Richard is a loving, supportive husband but his anger is palpable when he finds out what his wife has done. The resolution of this crisis is also handled well and is very believable.

Part of the beauty of "Notes" is how the tension escalates. Eyre and Marber reveal little bits of the characters as we go along, manipulating our feelings about these characters. One moment, we hate Barbara, then we start to feel sad for her. One moment, we think Sheba is a great mother, then we hate her for having an affair with a 15 year old. Because the filmmakers have laid the groundwork so well, we can see the road leading to certain missteps and watch as the consequences play out in a believable way. All of these elements - great acting, crisp writing, taut direction - blend together to create one of the best films of the year.

This is yet another example of fine British cinema. What makes it so singular for an American like me is this is a movie that centers around two women, where said two women have most of the screen time, and where the male characters are secondary. It proves in a most masterful way that movies about women can be complex, interesting, and every bit as compelling as movies that center around male characters. And with two such stellar actresses as Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, how could the moviegoer go wrong?

This movie is a really wonderful and intricate character study. Though Blanchett's character sounds like she should be the villain, having violated one of the most sacred trusts the public places in its schools, Dench's character is no less menacing. What is truly astonishing about this film is how Blanchett's character comes out as more sympathetic in the end. What Sheba does is abhorrent but it is also horrifying to watch how Barbara tries her best to catch Sheba in her net. Though Sheba's actions are morally repugnant, she is not without a conscience and she knows that what she has done is wrong and that it will tear her family, her school, and her young lover's life apart. Barbara, on the other hand, is a textbook sociopath. Though initially enraged over discovering Sheba's affair, she decides to use it to her advantage so that she can back Sheba into a corner. Barbara doesn't care about the student and she doesn't really care about Sheba either. All she cares about is winning her prize. She is a ruthless predator.

Blanchett is fantastic as Sheba. She makes the character three dimensional so that the viewer can understand what has driven her to commit such a heinous act, though her reasons for it do not in any way excuse her actions. Still, it is really an experience to watch a film and see a villain who is multi-faceted and who reminds the viewer that all humans are fallible. She is a woman with a sickness, a woman who is deeply disturbed and who sets into motion a chain of events that she hasn't the least idea how to stop. Watching her life unravel is visceral and though she deserves to be punished it is still alarming to watch her walk right into the trap Barbara has set for her.

As for Dench, she is simply incomparable. Barbara is completely without feelings for anyone other than herself and she is incapable of understanding the pain of others. She is like a spider, slowly spinning her web and waiting patiently for her victims to become entrapped within her threads. Every scene that she is in is filled with such creepiness that it sends a shiver down the spine of the viewer. What is worse, she has established a pattern of behavior and suffers no consequences because of it. In this way, the film poses another interesting moral question. That people like Barbara exist is undeniable and that they get away with their actions goes without saying. While society certainly needs to protect itself from those whose crimes are transparent, what about those of someone like Barbara, who quietly set about destroying the lives of others.

Hollywood needs to take a hint from British cinema. If you take a strong story with interesting characters and cast formidable actors in the lead roles, people will not only see the movie, they will absorb it. Since this film is entirely devoid of explosions and high-speed chases, however, I will assume that Hollywood won't be emulating it any time soon. In that case, I will continue to look to the British filmmakers.

While this film could easily have crossed the boundaries of good taste, it is the electricity of the two female leads that sets this film about real life illicit romance, secrets, subterfuge and lies apart from exploitation. Based loosely on someone's book, and with a great deal of the real-life Mary Kay Letourneau story thrown in, "Notes On A Scandal" are literally the notes one of the female leads keeps in her diary about the schoolboy-school teacher romance the other one is conducting.

Kate Blanchett plays the wayward teacher in the mold of Letourneau, the real-life schoolteacher whose love affair with an underaged schoolboy led to her birthing two children by him, being convicted of statutory rape and doing a stini in prison for it,and later marrying him. While many of the seemingly all blond, young and nice looking teachers that have made the papers the last few years appear similar to Letourneau -- including Blanchett's sympathetic performance as her clone -- they were in fact mostly quite different. Letourneau actually loved the boy; most of these teachers just wanted something frilly and exciting in their lives and chose the outlet closest to them to achieve that. Many of them already has bikini or other leering photos posted on their MySpace sites before they engaged in the illegal activity.

While Blanchett demonstrates Oscar-worthy acting in the role as a British teacher in a school of lowlife students, Judi Densch is equally adept (perhaps even better) in her role as Blanchett's confidant, the coworker that keeps her secret life in exchange for their budding friendship. It seems Densch's character has specialized in certain forms of friendship throughout her life, as a scene with a school administrator makes clear late in the film. It helps you understand -- if you hadn't guessed it already -- that Densch's grip on Blanchett is far beyond friendship and forms another boundary of exploitation in this film that looks perversely into our sexual underground far more than anything we saw in the ultra-sexed "Kinsey" biopic from a few years back.

So four stars for this interesting and exquisitely well-acted (by some of the supporting players, too) film about modern day problems given a twist by Londonwood (it's a British film, after all.) This is twice as good as the best murdered beauty queen film you've ever seen and 100 times better than any movie of the week about a similar topic. Check it out if you topical filmmaking dotted with quite excellent acting.