Judi Dench's tour de force performance can't save this lesbian shocker from being barely average. Click for our verdict, the trailer and tell us what you think.
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Notes On A Scandal comes in at under 90 minutes, so you would expect a fairly brisk pace. In reality, the pace is the problem. There are two stories - the teacher's passion with an underage student, which should run at breakneck speed, and the older teacher's obsession with a younger one, which should be a slow burn. Together, they become confused - and this is probably one area where the book wins.
Sheba (short for Bathsheba - King David's passion, not the Queen of Sheba) is a free spirit, Barbara Covett (as in envy, presumably), the student and the husband are all pretty awful people - manipulative, self-centred and unaware of themselves.
Cate Blanchett gives us a woman on the edge, but the script doesn't give us enough to understand this. There are hints of the flaws in the marriage - and when her stuent/boyfriend asks if Nighy is her father, she says he is her uncle, it feels like a great betrayal.
The main reason for seeing this film is Dench. This is not some screen monster, but a portrayal of a sad, plain, unloved woman. The bravery in Dench's performance lies in being simply drab - apart from when she dresses up to go to Sheba's house for a meal. No warts and hook noses, just plain. Dench can hold the screen with her eyes - there are brief glances which show the horror that is Barbara's mind. In her seventies, Dench is probably twenty years too old for the part - but you don't notice it. You get the impression that Barbara looked that way at thirty, as she does in her fifties, as she will in her seventies.
You wouldn't like to meet any of the characters in the film, but a strength of the film is that it allows us to understand them - at least partly - even if we don't sympathise with them.
Alan Bennett's History Boys tackled the issue of teachers involved with pupils - with a gay element as well - yet treated it much more matter of factly, as it suggested the boys would. Neither film actually supports sex with schoolchildren, yet both have had difficulties with the subject matter.
The unsung hero of the film is the music by Philip Glass- screenwriter Patrick Marber has said that it changed the film from a drama to a thriller. It does give a real pulse to the film.
Rather like Helen Mirren in The Queen, Dench pulls out all the stops in what is a glorified TV movie. Perhaps the most fascinating element is that female pensioners can headline a film - and succeed.
Notes On A Scandal should be a three star film, but Dench nudges it up to four. The fact it is short helps - it doesn't outstay its welcome, but does feel a bit like a lost opportunity.
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