Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4351 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-06-04
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 88 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Gold stars to all for this taut psychological thriller based on Zoe Heller's novel that that gets more insidiously twisted as it unfolds. Oscar-nominated for her chilling performance, Dame Judi Dench gives a master class as schoolteacher Barbara Covett, a frumpy, friendless, and flinty spinster who lives with her cat. A formidable presence, Barbara is standoffish with colleagues and not one for students to trifle with (not that they'd dare). Cate Blanchett, also an Oscar nominee and winner of several critics society awards for her impassioned performance, costars as Sheba Hart, the new, overwhelmed art teacher who first becomes enthrall to Barbara after she steps in to help Sheba discipline unruly students. Barbara cultivates a friendship, and insinuates herself into Sheba's chaotic life, which includes her older husband (Bill Nighy), teenage daughter, and a son with Down's syndrome. Then, Barbara catches the reckless Sheba in a compromising position with a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson). Seizing her opportunity, the calculating Barbara does not turn her in. Rather, she wants to "help" her. "She's the one I've been waiting for," she writes in the journals she meticulously keeps, and which provide, in voiceover, her corrosive commentary. This all sounds very Fatal Attraction, but no boiling rabbits, please; we're British. Philip Glass's Oscar-nominated score accentuates the growing menace. Though there is little in these characters to admire, (one would think GLAAD would have something to say about the predatory turn Barbara's character takes), Notes on a Scandal is a compelling tour-de-force for its Grade-A cast. --Donald Liebenson

Synopsis
Dame Judi Dench and Kate Blanchett face off with searing 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-nosed spinster schoolteacher, and her poisonous 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 fever pitch when Barbara happens upon Sheba dallying in the art room with a 15-year-old 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 will leave viewers chewing their nails to the quick, but unable to tear their eyes away. Both Blanchett and Dench are dazzling to watch as they deftly handle the barbed wit of Patrick Marber's screenplay. Directed by Richard Eyre of the Northern Theatre of London, and with a score by Philip Glass, NOTES ON A SCANDAL takes what could serve as mere tabloid fodder and plays it out on the level of Shakespearean tragedy.

Customer Reviews

A well delivered and straight to the point drama
Notes On A Scandal [2006] is a well delivered and straight to the point drama. As suggested by the title, the movie is about a scandal emerging that affects all parties. To elaborate on this point, it involves a veteran teacher (Judi Dench), a fresh art teacher (Cate Blanchett), her husband ( Billy Nighy) and the school. So much is at stake here at the expense of a scandal, which are prestige, marriage and career. How does it end? That is the general gist of the story.

Notes on a scandal is a moving and psychological story about how one's behaviour can change the course of life dramatically. It is about marriage and friendship being really challenged through tough times. The acting to the movie is first class with Cate Blanchett, Judi Denchi and Bill Nighy offering electrifying performances to bring the characters to life. With the cast the calibre like this, it no wonders genuine credibility is added in the movie with regards to the storyline.

The reason for not awarding a full 5 star, is that the movie is little too thin and simple in terms of story and really open in the end. That my only criticism of the movie.

If you like and appreciate a good drama that offers a realistic portrayal of how's one actions and vulnerability in character can change a life into a bleak future, then this is one I would recommend. It is psychological thriller, which maybe not everyone cup of tea. Notes on a Scandal is worth watching for the subject matter it tackled and learn something from the movie.

Wrinkly White Female
Ordinarily this is the kind of girlie flick I'd happily wait a couple of years to catch on TV, but I really enjoyed the Zoe Heller novel on which it's based and I'd heard great things about the performances. Judi Dench has been rightly praised for her dowdy turn as poisonous Barbara Covett. In fact, it's impossible to imagine anyone else in the role - which is about the highest form of praise for an actor - and the same can be said of Cate Blanchett as the radiant but troubled Sheba Hart. You can't take your eyes off either one of them.

The men acquit themselves well, too. Bill Nighy is instantly likeable as Sheba's cuckolded husband, and Andrew Simpson (who looks disturbingly young on the back of the DVD) is well cast in a potential minefield of a part as Sheba's 15 year old lover. Their scenes together are tastefully handled, and true to the spirit of the book there's nothing gratuitous here. Screenwriter Patrick Marber has come a long way from his comic turns in The Day Today all those years ago. His main territory now is (deadly) serious emotional drama, and at times (Bill Nighy's flying spittle; Cate Blanchett's deranged screaming in the face of the press) it all seems a tiny bit... pre-menstrual, for want of a better word. This is tightly-written, though, and it's hard to imagine a better rendering of Heller's book. The two very different depictions of loneliness are achingly real, and that's thanks in part to Marber's unhurried script that feeds us information on a need-to-know basis and slowly escalates from the innocuous to the horribly sinister.

If you liked the book, you'll certainly enjoy the film. There's really nothing to fault here, although somehow (I can't quite put my finger on the reason why) it falls short of brilliance. Maybe it's just a personal preference for something a little more left-of-centre. This is basically good mainstream fare of the Saturday night white-wine-and-takeaway variety. A satisfying, well-made film with oustanding performances - unlikely to be in anyone's all-time top ten but equally unlikely to disappoint.

Savage pain brilliantly portrayed
The film follows the relationship between a beautiful, fey art teacher, brilliantly played by Blanchett and an older, lonely spinster who teaches in the same school, played with all the building sinister accuracy of Lady Macbeth, by Dench.

Initially the friendship between the two women seems mutually supportive: Dench providing Blanchett with support and advice in handling her class; Blanchett providing Dench with friendship and an entre into her happy, wealthy, loving family.

When Dench discovers Blanchett has fallen for one of her pupils, the relationship changes. Dench allows herself to see Blanchett as more than just a beautiful innocent to be enjoyed and admired. This becomes a story of love and obsession, and the difference between the two.

Absolutely storming performances from Dench and Blanchett keep you transfixed throughout; the film's grand Shakespearean themes of love, desire, jealously and loss are transmitted through understated performances form both the central characters and the all supporting cast.

it is tautly directed, and superbly underpinned by the Philip Glass score.

This has to be one of the best films of the decade, unfairly overlooked in the awards, despite its many nominations. Brilliant.