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"Notes on a Scandal" is an insubstantial story dressed up with a top drawer cast. But though the central performances may be riveting, they simply can't disguise the shortcomings of the paper-thin plot. The direction does its best to steer the audience towards the star turns, but isn't ... Read review
Gold stars to all for this taut psychological thriller based on Zoe Heller's novel that ... more
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...
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Academy Award winners Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett give outstanding, Oscar Nominated ... more
performances - one as a woman consumed by her colleague's guilty secret, the other, a victim to her own dark obsessions - in this intelligent and stylish thriller.Den...
Gold stars to all for this taut psychological thriller based on Zoe Heller's novel that ... more
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...
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Academy Award winners Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett give wickedly entertaining ... more
Oscar-nominated performances - one as a woman consumed by her colleague's guilty secret the other a victim to her own dark obsessions - in this sexy stylish thriller. De...
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When Sheba arrives Barbara senses that she will be different from the rest of her ... more
staff-room colleagues. Sure enough, Sheba starts an affair with a pupil and is caught. When all the dust settles and Sheba's life falls apart, Barbara is there for her.
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When the new teacher first arrives Barbara immediately senses that this woman will be ... more
different from the rest of her staff-room colleagues. But Barbara is not the only one to feel that Sheba Hart is special and before too long Sheba is involved in an illicit affair with a pupil. Barbara finds the relationship abhorrent of course but she is the only adult in whom Sheba can properly confide. So when the liaison is found out and Sheba's life falls apart Barbara is there... Extract from Notes on a Scandal by Zo'ƒ« Heller The first time I ever saw Sheba was on a Monday morning early in the winter term of 1996. I was standing in the St George's car park getting books out of the back of my car when she came through the gates on a bicycle - an old-fashioned butcher-boy model with a basket in the front. Her hair was arranged in one of those artfully dishevelled up-dos: a lot of stray tendrils framing the jaw and something like a chopstick piercing a rough bun at the back. It was the sort of hairstyle that film actresses wear when they're playing sexy lady doctors. I can't recall exactly what she had on. Sheba's outfits tend to be very complicated - lots of floaty layers. I know she was wearing purple shoes. And there was definitely a long skirt involved because I remember thinking that it was in imminent danger of becoming entangled in her spokes. When she dismounted - with a lithe rather irritating little skip - I saw that the skirt was made of some diaphanous material. Fey was the word that swam into my mind. Fey person I thought. Then I locked my car and walked away. My formal introduction to Sheba took place later the same day when Ted Mawson the deputy head brought her into the staffroom at afternoon break for a 'meet and greet'. Afternoon break is not a good time to meet schoolteachers. If you were to plot a graph of a teacher's spirits throughout the school day afternoon break would be represented by the lowest valley. The air in the staffroom has a trapped stagnant quality. The chirpy claptrap of the early morning has died away and those staff members who are not milling about checking their timetables and so on sprawl in lugubrious silence. (To be fair the sprawling is as much a tribute to the shoddy construction of the staffroom's three elderly foam sofas as an expression of the teachers' low morale.) Some of the teachers stare slack-shouldered into space. Some of them read - the arts and media pages of the liberal newspapers mainly or paperback editions of the lower sort of fiction - the draw being not so much the content as the shield against having to converse with their colleagues. A great many chocolate bars and instant noodles in plastic pots are consumed. On the day of Sheba's arrival the staffroom was slightly more crowded than usual owing to the heating being on the blink in Old Hall. (In addition to its three modern structures - the gym the arts centre and the science block - the St George's site includes two rather decrepit red-brick buildings Old Hall and Middle Hall which date back to the school's original Victorian incarnation as an orphanage.) That afternoon several teachers who might otherwise have remained skulking in their Old Hall classrooms during break had been driven to seek refuge in the staffroom where the radiators were still operative. I was off in a far corner when Mawson ushered Sheba in so I was able to watch their slow progress around the room for several minutes before having to mould my face into the appropriate smile. Sheba's hair had become more chaotic since the morning. The loose tendrils had graduated to hanks and where it was meant to be smooth and pulled back tiny fuzzy sprigs had reared up creating a sort of corona around her scalp. She was a very thin
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When the new teacher, Sheba, first arrives, Barbara immediately senses that this woman ... more
will be different from the rest of her staff-room colleagues. Before too long, Sheba is involved in an illicit affair with a pupil. Barbara finds the relationship abhorrent, of course, but she is the only adult in whom Sheba can properly confide in.
From the first day that the beguiling Sheba Hart joins the staff of St George's, history ... more
teacher Barbara Covett is convinced that she has found a kindred spirit. Barbara's loyalty to her new friend is passionate and when Sheba is discovered to be having an illicit affair with one of her pupils, Barbara elects herself as Sheba's chief defender.
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
Production Year: 2002 - Drama - Director: Michael Caton-Jones - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Robert De Niro, Frances McDormand, James Franco, Eliza Dushku, William Forsythe, George Dzundza, Patti Lupone
Drama - Director: Kevin Smith - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, George Carlin, Jennifer Lopez, Jason Biggs, Matt Damon
Advantages: Great central performances from Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. Disadvantages: A lack of depth and pedestrian direction.
Secondary school teacher Barbara Covett rules her classroom with an iron fist. But her intractable personality means she is alone and friendless. Then new art teacher Sheba Hart arrives; a young, vivacious woman who could be the loyal friend and kindred spirit Barbara has been searching for. When she discovers Sheba is having an affair with a fifteen year-old student, she threatens to expose her secret to her husband and the world. That's when the ... ...to which she will sink to gain control of her new found friend.
National Theatre mainstay Richard Eyre must be thanking his lucky stars that he managed to assemble such a top flight cast for his production, because without them there would be little to hold this slight confection together. His unobtrusive style of direction pushes them to the fore, making everything else feel like minimalist set dressing. In many ways it's like watching ... more
Secondary school teacher Barbara Covett rules her classroom with an iron fist. But her intractable personality means she is alone and friendless. Then new art teacher Sheba Hart arrives; a young, vivacious woman who could be the loyal friend and kindred spirit Barbara has been searching for. When she discovers Sheba is having an affair with a fifteen year-old student, she threatens to expose her secret to her husband and the world. That's when the older woman's secrets and obsessions become apparent and the depths to which she will sink to gain control of her new found friend.
National Theatre mainstay Richard Eyre must be thanking his lucky stars that he managed to assemble such a top flight cast for his production, because without them there would be little to hold this slight confection together. His unobtrusive style of direction pushes them to the fore, making everything else feel like minimalist set dressing. In many ways it's like watching the film equivalent of a play performed on a very basic, entirely black set. He shoots as if from Barbara's perspective for much of the film, caressing Sheba's body and gazing at her with longing. The voice we hear most often is that of the older woman, whose diary entries make up most of the narrative. I'm not usually a fan of voice-over narration, but it works here because Barbara's caustic words so often run in direct opposition to the action. So in many ways the character constructs Sheba for us, which is probably why the art teacher's dalliance with one of her pupils comes as such a shock. There simply isn't a hint of it before Barbara stumbles upon it. Then we see a flashback montage of the circumstances surrounding the affair. All of the sexual activity is implied although the implications are clear. But the way Eyre shoots the relationship leaves it in no doubt that it is utterly ill advised and is bound to end in tears. This predictability undermines the movie in a dramatic sense as there are few surprises.
Visually, Eyre's film is relatively conservative. With the exception of flashbacks and montages there are very few cinematic tricks; the odd bit of hand-held camera for a paparazzi crush, but nothing that really sings to the audience. But at least he's shooting on decent grade film, so you aren't constantly trying to squint through murk. The film is fairly short at only ninety-two minutes, but there isn't sufficient story to extend it much beyond that anyway. This is one movie that doesn't have any extra padding.
The film is based on the novel of the same name by ex-Sunday Times columnist Zoë Heller. Her background as a gossip hound shows in the subject matter, which is pure soap opera; an attractive teacher embarks on an ill-advised affair with a pupil and is blackmailed over it by another woman who has designs on her. It feels like a calculated attempt to make money out of a hot topic. As a story, it doesn't have much substance. It is played out like an Oscar Wilde play (without the laughs) - the younger woman is threatened with ruin by the older, more calculating woman who can destroy her marriage, her reputation and her standing within the community. The treatment of Sheba's relationship with Steven Connolly is superficial to say the least, never exploring the emotional or psychological reasons behind it. Instead the plot focuses on the media furore surrounding it and the demonisation of the woman involved. We don't know enough about Sheba as a human being to understand why she betrays her family (especially her husband) in such a way. Similarly Barbara's obsession with her is never satisfactorily investigated. The characterisation is anaemic throughout, lacking the depth to make any of the characters truly sympathetic.
You can see playwright Patrick Marber's fingerprints all over the dialogue. He wrote "Closer" and his talent for vindictive, acid-tongued speech cannot be disputed. It is most obvious in Barbara's barbed commentary where she skewers all her subjects with her poison pen. But there is one entirely unnecessary instance of the c-word that is pure Marber. But he also has a delight of the language that is rare in films these days, like a phrase where a man is described as being "like a monkey that had just strolled out of the jungle and ordered a gin and tonic".
Dame Judi Dench gives yet another bravura performance as the poisonous Barbara. She's cold, hard and downright frightening as the emotionally shrivelled, washed-up old teacher. She looks dreadful - drawn and haggard, but the outside of the character matches the inside. Virtually every word out of her mouth is dripping with venom as she disparages, denigrates, manipulates and obsesses. But it's not so much what she says as what she does that makes you aware of just how dangerous she is. There's something about the way she looks at others; ever watchful and always calculating. She's a monster in many ways but Dench retains a sliver of humanity that suggests Barbara's pathological possessiveness is borne of deep-seated loneliness. And she doesn't overplay the character's repressed sexuality.
Cate Blanchett often plays strong, if not demanding women, so it's interesting to see her playing someone as fragile and vulnerable as Sheba. She looks the part; all luminous skin and wispy hair. She feels terribly middle class and maintains a solid posh English accent throughout. She feels like one of those women that constantly requires attention, fearful that without it they will die, but unable to vocalise that need. She is nervy and exudes desperation, so you can sort of understand why she does what she does, though there is no way you can condone it.
The film is really a two-woman show so none of the other actors get a look in. Bill Nighy plays nice for a change as Sheba's cuckolded husband. He's relaxed and laconic until the solids hit the air conditioning and then his sense of betrayal is there for all to see. It's a part that shows his versatility and there is a certain rawness to his emotional collapse that would make you feel for him if the part wasn't so criminally underwritten. As Steven Connolly, Andrew Simpson was always going to find it difficult to hold his own with on-screen lover Cate Blanchett and National Treasure Judi Dench. But he simply doesn't have the presence or experience to hold the viewers' attention.
I'm now going to say something that fans of composer Philip Glass will think sacrilegious. I don't understand all the fuss about him. I find his music pompous and overbearing. That is particularly true of his orchestrations for this movie. They're just too big. There are lots of big orchestral arrangements featuring deep, forbidding strings and woodwinds and discordant flutes that smother the accompanying action. These sit cheek by jowl with complex synthesized organ motifs that feel out of place amongst the more classical phrases. And the constant cellos soon became irritating. As far as I'm concerned, the music is too self-important and distracting.
"Notes on a Scandal" is an insubstantial story dressed up with a top drawer cast. But though the central performances may be riveting, they simply can't disguise the shortcomings of the paper-thin plot. The direction does its best to steer the audience towards the star turns, but isn't clever enough to distract from the story's lack of depth. As one of my old lecturers would no doubt have said; "bricks without straw. Could do better."
Advantages: Intriguing story, great performances Disadvantages: A couple of weak links
When married Sheba Hart first starts teaching at the school where Barbara Covett has worked for years, Barbara shows little interest in her. However, Barbara is a lonely woman with few friends and no partner, just a diary with which to share her feelings, and she thinks that she recognises a kindred spirit in Sheba. As she gets to know Sheba, she becomes more and more enamoured with her. Then she finds that Sheba is having an affair with an underage ... ...authorities, she decides to use the knowledge for her own purposes. Will Sheba be able to keep her secret from her husband and children? And exactly what kind of interest is Barbara showing in Sheba? Dame Judi Dench plays the lonely Barbara Covett. Barbara is a woman with many layers. In some ways, it is easy to feel sorry for her. She is close to retirement and fears spending the rest of her life on her own; the only problem is that the precautions ...
sunmeilan 26.06.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Notes On A Scandal (DVD)
Advantages: Fantastic performances, great soundtrack Disadvantages: Unconvincing story, some scenes are unintentionally funny
...2003 novel by Zoë Heller, Notes On A Scandal was released this February to much critical acclaim and several Oscar nominations; for its stars, Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, and also for its music score and screenplay, but we’ll come on to that later.
It tells the story of Barbara Covett (played by Dench); a lonely, elderly History teacher at a fairly average London secondary school. On to this pretty boring scenario bursts Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) ... ...quite as it seems…
Notes on a Scandal is an excellent example of an unpleasant narrator – Barbara Covett is an icy, detached, sometimes disturbing, and totally engrossing character. To her pupils she is the ultimate bitch of a teacher, but even with her supposed friend, Sheba, there is something quietly terrifying about her. In this role, Judi Dench is mesmerising, both on screen and in her deliciously dark voiceover. It’s through this device that ...
l-m-n-o-p 07.05.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Notes On A Scandal (DVD)
Advantages: riveting story, fine acting Disadvantages: none
...can't remember how I acquired Notes on a Scandal but it had been sitting on my 'to watch' shelf of DVDs for a while mainly because I didn't really know anything about it. Anyway, last night as my husband was out, I thought I would sit and watch it and I am so glad that I did as it really is an excellent film - and it's British! The film stars Judi Dench as Barbara Covett a crusty old spinster school teacher who is actually very lonely. She has a ... ...of the film meets Sheba Hart, a young art teacher, played by Cate Blanchett. She is young and attractive but feels a little bit trapped in her marriage to an older man (Bill Nighy) and dealing with their teenage daughter and downs syndrome son. Life is not easy for Sheba and she soon starts confiding in Barbara. This is exactly what Barbara yearns for but she is not at all pleased when she discovers that Sheba also has a somewhat unhealthy and dangerous ...
kingfisher111 26.09.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Notes On A Scandal (DVD)
Advantages: Great Acting and storyline Disadvantages: Can't think of any
...to be very good and Notes on a Scandal is no exception. In this film which is based on a book by Zoe Heller, Judi Dench plays Barbara Covett a middle aged school teacher who has a quite pessimistic outlook on life and this doesn't change initially when new teacher Sheba Hart joins the school. Sheba Hart is a young fresh new teacher who, after the pressures of taking care of a young family and dealing with the increasing loneliness she begins to see ... ...Richard Eyre Featurettes
Notes on a Scandal: The story of two obsessions
Notes on scandal: Behind the scenes
In Character with Cate Blanchett
Webisodes
Judi & Cate
Behind the scandal
The Screenplay
Judi Dench
Cate Blanchett
A conversation with Cate Blanchett and Bill Nighy
Casting
Characters
On Set
Love scenes
Theatrical Trailer
WWW.Fox.co.uk
Available on Amazon £7.98
Available on Play.com £5.99 ...
Merced 30.09.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Notes On A Scandal (DVD)
Advantages: Excellent performances, interesting story Disadvantages: None really
Notes on a Scandal is the story of Barbara Covett, a lonely and elderly teacher at an underperforming school. It begins with the introduction of a new teacher, young and pretty Sheba Hart. The two become friends, until Barbara discovers that Sheba is having an affair with a 15 year old student, at which point her view of the friendship intensifies significantly. Barbara becomes extremely posessive and falls in love with Sheba, who tries hard to please ... ...she is feeling quite disturbed by Barbara's actions. When angry with Sheba, Barbara clues another teacher in about Sheba's past with the student, who informs the public. Sheba has no choice but to leave her husband and her family and temporarily move in with Barbara, where she discovers her diary and finds out her true feelings about her - and that there appears to be a recurring pattern, as her actions and views had been done once before with another ...
hi_nicola 17.12.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Notes On A Scandal (DVD)
NOTES ON A SCANDAL is the story of Barbara Covett, a hard-nosed spinster schoolteacher, and her poisonous friendship with fellow teacher Sheba Hart. Barbara one day 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.
Release details
DVD Region
DVD
Studio(s)
20TH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Release date
04/06/2007
No of Discs
1
Catalogue No
3249801000, 3249802000
Barcode
5039036033350, 5039036033367
Screenwriter
Patrick Marber
Languages
Main Language
English
Technical information
Special Features
Commentary by Richard Eyre, Three featurettes, Eight webisodes
Aspect Ratio
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1
Professional reviews
Review
A blisteringly intense, darkly comic thriller in which Dench delivers an incendiary performance unlike anything she has ever done (Sunday Express, 19/04/2007)
The first great British film of the year (The Guardian, 19/04/2007)
Award information
OSCAR
Best Actress In A Leading Role 2007 (Judi Dench), Best Actress In A Supporting Role 2007 (Cate Blanchett)
BAFTA
Best Actress 2007 (Judi Dench)
DVD Description
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.
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