There were moments watching Notes on a Scandal that I wanted to leave the cinema. It isn’t that it’s bad. Rather, it’s so good, so intense and so uncomfortable that it is almost too much. The last time I felt like this in a film was when I saw Closer which, not at all surprisingly, was also written by the supremely talented Patrick Marber. The two leads, Cate Blanchett and the British institution that
is Dame Judi Dench, devour his tight script with an appetite which is enthralling to watch.

Dench plays Barbara Covett, a wizened, bitter history teacher, whose loneliness and disappointment with life oozes from every pore. Her pupils loathe her, but she has the respect that is attributed to women who don’t suffer fools gladly. Enter Sheba Hart (Blanchett); upperclass, bohemian, beautiful, artistic; and the woman Barbara has been waiting for. They enter into a friendship, based super-ficially on Sheba’s complete inability to control a class, but undercurrents of Barbara’s obsession cast a feeling of doom over the film from the outset. The friendship takes on a terrifying dynamic when Sheba begins an affair with a 15 year old pupil - when Barbara finds out, a twisted set of events ensue which destroys both women, and those around them, all of which Barbara ‘notes’ in her series of macabre diaries.

You will leave the cinema feeling emotionally and physically exhausted - the power of the two lead performances draws you inexorably in, and the audience collectively exhaled as the credits rolled. There is relief,mercifully, in the wry humour that Marber weaves so well into the script, and which Dench in particular delivers with a dry wit that had the audience laughing out loud.Moreover, the caricatures of their fellow teachers are well observed and touching, and the supporting cast. Andrew Simpson as Sheba’s adolescent lover (a career highlight, surely, before it’s even begun?) is notable, if eclipsed by the tour de force of Blanchett and Dench. The only disappointment is Bill Nighy as Sheba’s husband; he is, as always, simply Bill Nighy - receding hair-line, crumpled clothes and a latent sexiness without much depth. According to the film press, 2007 is the year of the female film star; and this challenging, superbly-acted film certainly endorses that.

Four Stars

Rachael Boston

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