Notes on a Scandal: Movie & DVD Review (2006)

(Originally published 2006)

The Richard Eyre thriller, "Notes on a Scandal," stars Judi Dench in one of the cruelest, most isolating roles of her career. So, for those who appreciate Dench and know that such a role only can lead to good things, here is your Christmas pudding. Enjoy.

In the film, Dench is Barbara Covett, a British school teacher of a certain age who wields a poisonous wit that's so cutting, it could come up against the likes of, say, an Evelyn Waugh or a Dorothy Parker, and draw its share of blood.

Over the course of her career, the actress has steamrolled her way through her share of movies, from Queen Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare in Love" and Laura Henderson in "Mrs. Henderson Presents" to Iris Murdoch in "Iris," but never has she been this daring or this edgy. Her Barbara views the world as her foil, with those unfortunate enough to wander into her sights apparently there to be devastated and undermined, should she choose to do so.

Physically, the actress also has transformed herself--any trace of the blonde, tan, glamorous-looking woman recently seen in the new James Bond movie, "Casino Royale," now looks as if she has been pickled with vinegar. Barbara is on the losing side of gravity's pull--she's all pinched lips, beady eyes and sneering demeanor, with a helmet of dyed brown hair that shows a telling flash of snow white near the root.

As written by Patrick Marber from Zoe Heller's book, a good deal of the movie is spent inside Barbara's barbed mind, which is fitting since so much of it is told from her vicious point of view. When into her life comes the pretty new art teacher Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), a young bohemian who is married with children, Covett is drawn to her in ways that suggest a kind of sexual stirring.

While writing in her robust diary, she decides they will become friends, which Sheba innocently encourages. She invites Barbara to her home, where she introduces her to her family--her older husband, Richard (Bill Nighy), teenage daughter Polly (Juno Temple), and son Ben (Max Lewis), who has Down's syndrome.

For awhile, all is good until Sheba makes the unbelievably stupid decision to give in to one of her student's sexual advances. He's 15-year-old Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson) and the Monica Lewinsky Sheba pulls on him early in the movie is witnessed by Barbara, who is so hungry for companionship--and so calculating to see that she gets it--she realizes that by catching Sheba in this act, she could gain everything by doing nothing.

With their friendship sealed thanks to Barbara's promise to Sheba that she will say nothing of the affair ("you must, however, end it immediately"), the stage is set for some rather spectacular unraveling, with each actress happily hurling themselves onto a collision course that must end in scandal, as the film's title notes. Once there, the ending recalls murmurs of "Fatal Attraction" and the histrionics that ensue are charged with the huffing and puffing of melodramatic cheapness--which, in the hands Dench and Blanchett, is something to savor, indeed.

Grade: B+