Notes on a Scandal
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 32 minutes
Directed by: Richard Eyre
Starring:
Judi Dench - Barbara Covett
Cate Blanchett - Sheba Hart
Bill Nighy - Richard Hart
Steven Connolly - Andrew Simpson
With Closer and now Notes on a Scandal, I’m convinced that no one writes the desperation and struggles of human relationships better than Patrick Marber. His characters always act realistically and in the hands of even a half-decent actor, their actions are always compelling.
Thankfully, Marber and director Richard Eyre have two of the best actresses working today leading this film. Judi Dench plays Barbara Covett, an uptight schoolmarm who is too busy judging everyone else’s life to reconcile her own desires for love and companionship. But when the naïve Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) enters her life as a fellow teacher, Covett begins an infatuation which only deepens as she stumbles upon Hart’s salacious affair with a 15-year-old student.
Lesser storytellers might be drawn more to the ripped-from-the-headlines story of a female teacher’s affair with one of her students, but Marber sticks to the more universal and harsher themes of what people will do out of what they think is love. Hart doesn’t love the boy, but she loves the feeling and feels entitled to her affair. An even deeper character study is required of Dench’s Oscar-worthy performance of a woman wrestling with concepts of love, obsession, and control…if only she wasn’t so busy trying to control others.
While Marber has definitely staked out a territory and a style with this follow-up, Notes on a Scandal is certainly not Closer 2: Closest! It possesses the same understanding of human relationships, but in place of Closer'scharming mean streak, Notes on a Scandal features the sadness and desperation of solitude with a dash of resentment, anger, and humor thrown in for good measure. Even the half-decent actors might fumble this confusing concoction of human pathos, but Dench and Blanchett manage to weave it into some of the finest performances of their respective careers.
Words by
Matt Goldberg
12.20.06