| Film review: Notes on a scandal
NOTES On A Scandal is notable for several reasons. First of all it’s
one of the more adept literary adaptations of recent years. Secondly it
takes a highly controversial subject — a teacher/underage student
seduction — and bravely treats it as just one of those things involving
humans rather than just condemning the teacher. Thirdly it requires Dame
Judi Dench to act.
Dench for some time has been resting on her laurels. She’s great
of course but seems to have been more the beneficiary of fortunate casting
rather than having to engage the acting muscles. The pre-production conversation
seems to have gone: “We need someone to play a cantankerous old
biddy who’s really a softie at heart.”
“OK I’ll see if Judi’s free.”
In Notes… though she just proves what some of us suspected for a
while: Judi Dench can act.
She’s remarkable as Barbara the nearing-retirement teacher who takes
the younger, prettier new art teacher Sheba (Cate Blanchett) under her
wing. Barbara as we later discover has trouble maintaining friendly attachments.
When she discovers Sheba’s secret — she’s sleeping with
a 15-year old student Steven (young Irish actor Andrew Simpson) —
Barbara’s not-so-subtle blackmail becomes increasingly obsessive
and her true nature previously masked by a world-weary, wise façade
becomes more obvious.
The result is a genuinely sinister tale. Dench gets under Barbara’s
and the audience’s skin without once falling into standard movie
histrionics. While the book was more subtle — the diary format only
gives Barbara’s side of the tale and you have to read between the
lines to discover the truth — the film opens things up. This obviously
undermines some of the story’s surprise but thankfully Dench —
plus Blanchett, Simpson and particularly Bill Nighy as Sheba’s husband
— convince utterly and it’s this sense of reality that gives
the film the foundation for its power. Forget Dame Helen Mirren’s
painfully-overrated triumph of make-up in The Queen. The Oscar for best
actress should be going in Dench’s direction.
Neil Davey
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