| Product: |
Notes on a Scandal (DVD) |
| Date: |
05/10/08 (139 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Inteligent film
Disadvantages: Perhaps slightly feminstic
If a male school teacher has a relationship with a 15-year-old schoolgirl in a movie its seedy predatory child abuse, but if it you're a 15-year-old boy and your teacher is the strikingly beautiful Cate Blanchet and she wants you then it's every boy's fantasy, this movie certainly author feminist Zoë Heller dream world. One kid's sexual abuse is certainly another ones sexual fantasy. Most boys had a crush on one teacher or another. But feminist writer Zoë Heller wants to casually throw that contradiction into London's bourgeois middle class suburbia in this adaptation by screenwriter Patrick Marber of her award wining book Notes on a Scandal. By adding the ingredient of loneliness into the narrative as an excuse for predatory and taboo sexual behavior she gets into the viewers heads on what's right and wrong as far as sexual role reversal goes, the riskier it is the more exciting it is the attraction. What middle aged woman wouldn't be flattered by a handsome 16-year old lover telling her she's beautiful?
The screenplay does flinch out a little in that the Judy Dench role as her lonely Sapphic spinster role is subtly steered away from being the full on lesbian she is in the book, that perhaps one step too far for Britain's premier actress (even though she does look a bit like one in all her movies). Casting Aussie Cate Blanchett alongside really elevates the films status and with its overlaid intelligent and crisp narration by Dench and the always exuberant, demonstrative and ubiquitous Bill Nighy in the mix it does make for interesting viewing.
The central premise of the morality over age gaps in relationships is well explored here and all the guilt that comes with that. Blanchetts character is thirty years younger than her husband Nighy in the film yet it is she that is the villain for sleeping with someone twenty years younger than her. The reality is that when men get older they want younger lovers and when women get older they will take any offers.
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Barbara Covett: Here come the local pubescent proles. The future plumbers, shop assistants, and doubtless the odd terrorist too. In the old days, we confiscated cigarettes and w*nk mags. Now its knives and crack cocaine. And New Labor calls it progress.
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-Plot-
Blanchett plays Sheba Hart, an arts teacher about to start her first term at a tough North London comprehensive. She is married to a much older man (Bill Nighy), now returning to work after caring for her disabled son Ben (Max Lewis) who has Downes Syndrome. She's bored and wants to put back into society after drifting through life with a mediocre arts degree, paid for by her disapproving but wealthy parents, always willing to remind her off her failures.
In the staff room Sheba is soon making friends with wise old history teacher Barbara Covett (Dench), equipped to get her through the first term as she has seen it all. The two hit it off and Barbara is quickly involving herself in Sheba's family life, the company she longs for as retirement nears, only her cat for company at home. But things take a turn for the perverted when Barbara discovers Sheba's secret liaisons with one of her cocky male pupils, 15-year-old Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson), he being very naughty with her in the art classroom after hours, 'extra tuition' neither expected or had in mind. Sheba is flattered by the boys attention and some how cant control herself. Barbara is affronted by this illicit action, not just professionally but sexually, as she too has a crush on the beautiful art teacher-but how to use it to her advantage?
Its here in the film where the narrative takes a sinister turn and Barbara becomes obsessive about Sheba, their secret shared now their eternal bond. But when her wanting begins to impede on Sheba's life the beautiful teacher rejects her friendship and so the threat is there that Sheba's revealed sordidness could end her world, something Barbara is prepared to do if she doesn't get her way.
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Sheba Hart: This is going to sound sick, but something in me felt... entitled. You know, I've been good all my adult life. I've been a decent wife, a dutiful mother coping with Ben. This voice inside me kept saying "why shouldn't you be bad, why shouldn't you transgress? I mean, you've earned the right."
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-Cast-
Judi Dench ... Barbara Covett
Cate Blanchett ... Sheba Hart
Tom Georgeson ... Ted Mawson
Andrew Simpson ... Steven Connolly
Michael Maloney ... Sandy Pabblem
Bill Nighy ... Richard Hart
Joanna Scanlan ... Sue Hodge
Juno Temple ... Polly Hart
Max Lewis ... Ben Hart
Anne-Marie Duff ... Annabel
-Trivia-
Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench and Anne-Marie Duff have all played Queen Elizabeth I. Cate in Elizabeth (1998), Judi in Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Anne-Marie in "The Virgin Queen" (2005).
-Conclusions-
Two great actresses should make a decent film, which is the case here. Dench always delivers and Blanchett has an incredible screen presence. The only problem with this film is Blanchett isn't fully exploited in it and so her character doesn't feel that believable, only a couple of scenes where she puts in enough emotion to mess up her pristine hair. There's no real sexual tension to that illicit wanton lust, which I understand is the point of the film, and it quickly becomes about an acting performance by Judy Dench rather than the complete film. I really would have liked to have seen more comment in the narrative on the age gap between Blanchett and Bill Nighys role, she clearly compromising on true love and breezing through life by taking from others. As a guy you want to know more on why women will live and marry a bloke they don't really love. To a guy that is an alien concept, although we are easily duped, which probably answers that question right there.
The lesbian voyeur was a role made for Dench and she delivers it brilliantly, Heller's intelligent feminist writing (all the men are feckless wimps) the bullets for that. The twist is pretty good and the film maintains its integrity throughout and with that distinct lack of glamour on show that Blanchett brings to movies it does feel more viable, although she is too beautiful to be a teacher with her Hollywood hair and make up. But the film worked for me and with its clever observational writing on teaching and that middle class aloofness, the textures are there for you to know you have seen something smart, the emotions of guilt, complicity and deceiving, neatly woven into its seamless tapestry. For me it's a film that allows you to take out of it what you feel and make your own judgments. I only wish Cate Blanchet was my art teacher as I would be Rembrandt by now. Sadly I always got the Judy Dench's...
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Barbara Covett: People languish for years with partners who are clearly from another planet. We want so much to believe that we've found our other. It takes courage to recognize the real as opposed to the convenient.
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* * * * * Special Features* * * * *
-Audio commentary with Richard Eyre-
-In character with Cate Blanchett-
Cate flicks her hair around intelligently but seductively in this talking head...I'm beautiful but I'm also smart so take me seriously type of thing...
-Notes on a Scandal-
Standard behind the scenes stuff with cast, director and writers...
-Notes on a Scandal: the story of an obsession-
Yet more talking head discussion on the film to let you know your smart if you get it.
-Webisodes-
A little misleading title as this is more of the above, but sectored out interviews from the cast and crew.
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Imdb.com scores it 7.7 out of 10.0 (`9,711)
Adult themes
RuN-TiMe 92 minutes
Quotes care off Imdb.com
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Summary: Thoughtful drama....
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