Notes on a Scandal is a scathing, shocking and brilliant film from director Richard Eyre (Iris, Stage Beauty). Based on a 2003 novel of the same name by Zoe Heller, the film was released on Christmas Day in 2006 and has since racked up the critical acclaim for its incredible screenplay and its standout performances from Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. It is a film with complex purpose that tells a very intricate story with relative simplicity, allowing the performers and the script to captivate and take hold without venturing into normative thriller cliche territory or overdoing the obvious focal points.
Notes on a Scandal is a British film and is packed to the brim with acerbic wit and acid-tongued dialogue, making it sparkle and illuminate the screen with its voracious ability to use language to deliver the finer points of story and character building. It is a character study of the highest order, framed with an increasingly common social issue (despite what some people have said about the film’s premise, current events reflect a startlingly different reality). The film tangles with tough issues and humanizes them, if only just barely, to allow the quiet confusion and terrifying loneliness of its characters unfold and crumble before our very eyes.
Judi Dench stars as a history teacher, Barbara Covett, at a London comprehensive school. She is a lonely woman and she keeps a diary in which she frequently and compulsively muses about her colleagues as a way of defending herself, insulting nearly everyone she comes in contact with using her caustic narrative. Covett’s diary-writing serves as a narrative to the film, as Dench eloquently overlays most scenes with her trademark tone and wit. The narrative guides the story and allows us insight into Covett and her true feelings, even at moments in which she appears to act differently. It’s a nice touch and forms a complete character out of Covett that Dench fills in expertly. Every move she makes, every word she speaks and every shady manipulation is spot-on from the opening frame of the film. Dench’s performance is, as per usual, masterful.
Cate Blanchett stars as Sheba Hart, a new teacher at the school. She teaches art and is very vulnerable, having married a “much older” man (Bill Nighy). Hart is also dealing with raising a difficult family, as her son has Down’s Syndrome and her daughter is combative. Hart wishes her life had turned out differently and, in the beginning of her relationship with her husband, clung to the somewhat forbidden aspect of it all and hoped it would stay that way forever. As her life progressed, however, Hart began to lose her grip on things and faded into the background of her own existence. Cate Blanchett fleshes out her character, adding real emotion and sublimely reaching and plunging the depths to explain, but never excuse, her actions as the film moves on.
Hart and Covett begin to slowly form a bond as a result of dealing with the complications of some of the students. They form a friendship and Covett becomes somewhat of a fixture in the lives of Hart and her family. Covett, a very possessive woman, places her hopes and dreams in this relationship and develops a physical and sexual attraction towards Hart that she keeps hidden. One fateful day, Covett goes looking for Hart, having not seen her at a school play, and finds her in what could only be described as a “compromising position” with a 15-year old student (Andrew Simpson). Covett, after getting over her shock, confronts Hart and the two begin to discuss the issue.
Hart, it turns out, has been sleeping with the 15-year old boy for a while now. She ran to him as a result of an attraction she hadn’t felt in years and because she felt “wanted” and desired. Through a segment of flashbacks, we see Hart engaging in sexual intercourse with the boy a few times. These scenes are uncomfortable and shocking, really driving home the point of this incident and of this illicit affair. The scenes are rather passionate and don’t leave much to the imagination, which makes for very interesting and engaging cinema and, as an aside, makes then 16 or 17-year old Simpson one lucky bastard. But I digress……
Covett takes her knowledge of the affair straight to Hart (no pun intended) and begins to use it as leverage to get the relationship she always wanted. Nothing sexual or physical blossoms between Covett and Hart, although Covett’s attraction is rather obvious. Covett informs Hart that she must end the affair with the boy and Hart agrees. After some time, however, Covett discovers that affair has continued and feels the sting of ultimate betrayal. She eventually discloses information about the affair to a colleague and, rather hastily, the situation crumbles. Hart is outed, fired and charged criminally for the affair and Covett is forced out of her job early as a result of an exposed past of her own and suspicion that she knew of the affair.
The two collide eventually as Covett brings Hart to her home for a break from Hart’s husband, who rightfully needs some time to himself after this firestorm. The media is a fixture outside the home of Covett and stalk Hart continually, pressing her for more details. One day, while alone in Covett’s home, Hart comes across the journal in which Covett has been exposing her thoughts and all hell breaks loose to put it mildly. Covett and Hart part ways with bitter rage, Hart ends up in prison, and Covett closes the film with yet another younger woman to continue the cycle of being a predator.
The film tackles the theme of being a predator as its central focus, but it also presents an eerie character study of how people can use information and how people can damage one another’s lives. Notes on a Scandal is interesting in that it doesn’t take any conventional roads. Both protagonists in the tale are guilty as sin and both have a large degree of wickedness within. The film does not attempt to hide or quantify these actions, but rather to explain them. This has made many people uncomfortable with the material, but I feel the acting and the tremendous script create such a tone for the film that it becomes impossible to turn away. It is a dark, eerie and disturbing journey through the minds of two predatory women and a nice change in terms of gender roles. Both women know exactly what they’re doing.
The soundtrack is of note as well, as it is simply superb. Philip Glass is in charge of the Oscar-nominated score and it guides everything with simple perfection. It is quite simply one of the better scores in recent memory and is brilliantly composed by Glass with lovely pieces of music throughout.
Notes on a Scandal is a complicated, disturbing and uncomfortable film. It is also very caustic and acerbic, resonating deeply with character development and gritty humour throughout. The performances are flawless from Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett and Bill Nighy (along with everyone else, actually) and the soundtrack guides this film with tremendous purpose. It is one of the highlights of the 2006 film year and is a welcome change from some of the drivel that passes as film. Notes on a Scandal is a rewarding character-driven drama for adults that hits every note with purpose and due accord.
8.5/10
Trailer:
