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Notes on a Scandal
Reviewed by DollyCali
Can you say Mary Kay Letourneau ?
The thoughts of course will cross your mind as you become involved in this film in which Dame Judi Dench and Kate Blanchett are presented as school teachers in England with cutting performances in this riveting tale of obsession and desire. Based on the novel by Zoe Heller, NOTES ON A SCANDAL is the story of Barbara Covett (Dench), a hard-to like spinster schoolteacher, and her troubling friendship with fellow teacher Sheba Hart (Blanchett). When the young and beautiful Sheba shows up as the new art instructor, everyone is charmed by her, including the embittered Barbara.
Barbara is thrilled when her lonely life is shaken up by Sheba's overtures of friendship, as Sheba invites her to share in family dinners, and opens up to her about her marital troubles and personal longing. Barbara narrates her own feelings of longing to us from her meticulous diaries, and it becomes increasingly clear that her take on the friendship is uncomfortably intense, if not borderline delusional.
Things reach a momentous tone when Barbara happens upon Sheba “involved” in the art room with a 15-year-old male student. She tells Sheba that she must end the affair at once, but decides not to report her to the school, and instead, to use her knowledge of the indiscretion to draw Sheba closer to her, and put her in her debt. But when Barbara's demands on Sheba become too high, things soon unravel, setting off a chain of events that reveal the sad effects of indiscrestion, lies, coverup, misplaced love/trust.
Both Blanchett and Dench are thrilling to watch as they skillfully handle the creative wit of Patrick Marber's screenplay. Directed by Richard Eyre of the Northern Theatre of London, and with a score by Philip Glass(who also did the wonderful music for The Illusionist) , NOTES ON A SCANDAL takes what could serve as mere tabloid fodder and plays it out on the level of Shakespearean tragedy.
This is rated R It is 1 hour1 an 38 minutes in length.
Stars: Judi Dench and Kate Blanchett Richard Eyre Director & Philip Glass Composer
Box Office (March 15): $17,061,885
Rotten Tomatoes Review
Official Site
Trailers
Holly-Toons March 2007
Week Three
By Pookie18, Editor
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