Notes On A Scandal
Release Date: 02 February 2007
Director: Richard Eyre
Starring: Bill Nighy, Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench
Details: UK / 90mins (15).
Director: Richard Eyre
Starring: Bill Nighy, Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench
Details: UK / 90mins (15).
Adapting Zoe Heller's novel of the same name, Closer scribe Patrick Marber dumps his usual sharp dialogue for bombastic lines that blow up in the character's faces. The big faux pas Marber makes is that he approaches the subject - cynical spinster Barbara Covett (Dench) discovers that the new art teacher Sheba Hart (Blanchett) is sleeping with her 15-year-old student (Simpson) and uses the information for her own ends - like he's the first one to ever address it. Marber could have subverted the already familiar storyline and given us something fresh, but he doesn't, and as a result his script feels like nothing more than a daring Home & Away episode. Seen through the eyes of Dench's borderline psycho, we're not allowed to get inside Blanchett: what makes her tick, why she would dump her family to sleep with a 15-year-old boy, etc? We are allowed only a glimpse into her past (a photo of her when she was a punk) but that attempt at her hidden rebellious nature feels half-assed and amateurish, and her feeble defence of the affair: "He's very mature for his age," subsequently rings hollow. Blanchett, a wonderful actress, struggles with her rigid lines and is hemmed-in by a badly drawn character that has nothing to do but worry. Simpson is never developed: he's a horny teenage boy and that's it, but he could have done with some padding, anything to show us that he has something that would make a grown woman fall for him. None of the above is Dench's fault, however. She has played sharp-tongued old ladies in her long career, but she adds a malevolence not seen before here. It's her poisonous narration that propels the film along and keeps it exiting, but Dench can only do so much before the pedestrian pacing and hackneyed scenes prove too much. Since we only learn about Blanchett's affair from Dench's diary, director Eyre employs flashbacks of the burgeoning relationship to fill in the gaps, but flashbacks lack immediacy and some tension and drama is lost when a situation is described to us rather than experiencing it firsthand. Glass's score is overused and turned up to eleven: surely the drama of a situation should be strong enough without some powerful, grandiose strings to reinforce the notion?
Review by Gavin Burke
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Your Reviews...
Good but the book is better! - dervalmccormack
It was my mother who recommended me to read the Zoe Heller novel “Notes on a Scandal”. I had never heard of... MORE03/03/2009 17:31:09scandalous - norm
this film dissappointed me I'm afraid. i had heard alot of the hype surrounding it, and given the taboo subject it... MORE16/02/2008 16:04:23Not one for the younguns. - Brook D.
I did not like it so much when i first went to see it but after watching it again it kind of grew on me its not a total... MORE07/05/2007 10:42:43not as good as I thought it would be, but still worth watching. - Eoghan Bolger
Notes on a Scandal... MORE17/04/2007 15:29:56




