NOTES ON A SCANDAL

Judi Dench knows Cate Blanchett’s dirty little secret in the dramatic thriller, NOTES ON A SCANDAL. Dench is Barbara Covett, a cynical and downbeat teacher who feels her best days, and the school’s, are years ago. Barbara gets a breath of fresh air when Sheba Hart, the school’s new art teacher arrives. Sheba, played by Blanchett, invites Barbara over to a family dinner, and it looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Barbara soon learns of an extra-marital affair that Sheba is having with one of her students, and instead of outing Sheba to the school, or helping her to rehabilitate herself, Barbara utilizes Sheba’s secret for leverage.

What sounds to be a Lifetime Movie of the Week on paper, turns out to be a wonderfully sadistic thriller from director Richard Eyre and writer Patrick Marber. The screenplay, based on the novel by Zoe Heller, takes a simplistic scenario and twists it into one woman’s vicious playground. Much of the credit goes to Dench, playing off type. She delivers a deliciously twisted character whose desperation for friendship is equaled only by her manipulative nature. Eyre’s choice for Dench’s narration pays off greatly, showing the internal chess match Barbara is playing. Dench is more than capable of taking care of the rest, with devilish grins, icy stares and a few scenes which allow her to demonstrate Barbara’s pent-up anger. Barbara is so obviously repulsive, that one almost sees Sheba as a helpless victim. Eyre and Marber seem intent on posing the question whose worse, Barbara or Sheba. Sheba’s is a crime of passion, albeit as a child predator, where Barbara’s is of a calculating and malicious nature. For one to even raise the question is a testament to how effective Dench is as Barbara. NOTES ON A SCANDAL is a riveting thriller that Dench carries.

Grade: B