The TGIF Movie Review: Notes on a Scandal
June 1st, 2007 by Matt
While I’m someone who, for inexplicable reasons, digs watching the Oscars (give me a year since 1990, and I’ll name you the movies up for Best Picture), I now completely understand why Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett were nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, for their roles in Notes on a Scandal. How Blanchett lost to Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls, which is an insult to cinema, is the only movie I’ve ever walked out of) is beyond comprehension. It’s the kind of thing that makes even an Academy Award junkie like me want to turn the channel forever.
The film is narrated by Barbara Covett (Dench) through her detailed journal, which recounts the each day’s events with a precision, a venom, and an obsessed heart. Covett is a history teacher, and Sheba Hart (Blanchett) is the new art teacher on the block. Hart and Covett begin a friendship early on when Covett helps Hart break up a fight between two students. As they grow closer, and Hart opens up about her husband and two kids: “You know, marriage and kids, I mean, it’s wonderful, but it doesn’t give you meaning. It gives you an imperative — the distance between life as you dream it and life as it is.” In her journal later that night, Covett describes their relationship this way: “It was like a novice confessing to the mother superior.” Soon after, though, Covett catches Hart having an affair with a 15-year-old student. Covett calls Hart on it, but decides to keep it a secret from the police and the school because “I could gain everything by doing nothing.” Covett, who has spent a life in solitude, pines for power over their increasingly twisted friendship. The film then takes us on some surprising turns, delicately ratcheting up the tension with every passing minute.
Notes on a Scandal is a movie about secrets and lies, about loneliness and sex, about history and control. In short, it’s a nuanced film not to be missed for those who, like me, dig on taunt, gripping dramas with acting that leaves you a bit short of breath.
See a glimpse of the secrets for yourself:
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