Scandalous ‘Notes’
Posted by tim on 07 Feb 2007 at 9:55 pm | Tagged as: Movies, Review
Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett’s current offering, Notes on a Scandal, is designed to entice and titillate audiences with its provocative teacher-student courtship and depiction of unrequited lesbian love. Well, it sold me.
Blanchett plays the stunning and coy Sheba Hart, an art teacher with a telling naiveté and a bit more money than she’d care to let on. Dench is Barbara Covett (punny, right?), an experienced history instructor with an iron fist and an eye for the ladies. She takes Sheba under her wing, in part to protect her, but more to seduce and ultimately keep her.
Running from her claustrophobic home life, Sheba finds an unfortunate source of solace in the arms of one of her underage students. Barbara, having little or no interest in any event not involving her new charge, inevitably finds out about the affair and uses this privileged information to become what she believes to be an integral part of Sheba’s life. Sheba–and her unwitting family–don’t agree with Barbara’s newfound sense of entitlement, and all hell breaks loose.
What Notes does well is impart a kind of unknowing expectation of the characters. Sheba, unsure of why she had an affair with a teenage boy, actually admits to not knowing why she had the affair. So convincing is her disbelief that her reluctance to analyze the situation seems perfectly acceptable. In Barbara’s case, the facts about her past relationships crop up like weeds, and the arrival of each is met with a prompt plucking–only to have two more pop up in its place. By the end of the film, their paralleled desperation is palpable.
The only downside of the film–aside from a superfluous bath tub scene featuring a discreetly covered Judi Dench–is the beautiful, yet misappropriated score by Philip Glass. The mood is intimate–the film’s narration comes by way of words read from the pages of Barbara’s diary–so why offset the tone with such a pronounced and intentionally overwrought soundtrack? It doesn’t make much sense, and I would challenge it further, but relative to the film’s overall success, it’s a minor flaw.
In the Oscar race, Notes on a Scandal is nominated for Best Actress (Judi Dench), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Cate Blanchett), Best Original Score (Philip Glass), and Best Adapted Screenplay. Try to catch it while it’s still in theaters. It’s a guilty pleasure you shouldn’t pass up.
Wow. I had no idea this movie was based on Zoe Heller’s book ‘What Was She Thinking’ until I read your synopsis. The movie sounds much more compelling than the book, as the ladder felt like humorless chicklit. Also, the the movie director must have really played up the lesbianism, as it was merely undertones in the novel.
If there were lesbian undertones in the book, then there are overtones in the movie. The octogenarian audience with whom I shared the theater were noticeably ill-prepared for Dench’s obsessive feelings. It’s very well played out. I highly recommend it.