Scandalous behaviour

There’s an impressive pedigree behind Notes on a Scandal. The original source material is Zoe Heller’s Booker shortlisted novel of the same name, the screenplay was written by renowned stage and screen writer Patrick Marber, and Richard Eyre (Stage Beauty) was tapped to direct the piece. The result is a gripping drama of tremendous quality.

Most of the kudos for that has to go to Marber, whose screenplay is full of wit, bile and tragedy, in just about equal parts. The standard of the writing is so high, that it manages to transcend the device of having one of the characters as narrator, a contrivance that could so easily have come unstuck.

Set in a fog-draped and grey-hued London, the plot pulls few punches as it puts its characters through the emotional wringer. The principal recipient of that wringing is Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), the willowy new art teacher at a struggling London school. She finds the staff welcoming in the main, except perhaps for the hard-bitten Barbara Covett (Judi Dench). But when Barbara discovers a terrible secret involving Sheba and 15-year-old student Stephen Connolly (Andrew Simpson), she inveigles herself into Sheba’s life. Soon, Barbara is being invited to family dinners at the Hart household, much to the chagrin of Sheba’s husband Richard (Bill Nighy).

True to his pedigree, Marber extracts considerable bitterness and not a little misanthropy from the piece. No one could faithfully be called the “hero” of the piece, and the screenplay doesn’t really follow a conventional narrative structure. There are elements here of Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley, notably in the way Marber and Eyre deal with themes of obsession and betrayal. Indeed, this could be seen as a mirror-image of Minghella’s film, with the male-bonding dynamic replaced by a female version.

Of course, the key reason to see this film is to watch two of the great female actors of our time – Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett – sparking off each other. Mind you, these two could probably recite the phone book and make it seem interesting; but their interaction her as the women dealing with the “scandal” of the title is amazing to behold.

Dench is a seething mass of bitterness and manipulation as Barbara. The actress plays her character with a darkness that shows us that the world which has so crushed Barbara’s spirit has also given her the insight to pursue her plans. It’s a tour de force from Dench, and one that will surely rank up there with her finest performances. Blanchett on the other hand is all willowy gullibility, a woman who should be more prescient but who still lives in a comfortable cocoon of self-delusion. With these two dominating the scenes, it’s understandably difficult for many of the other actors to get a look in; but Bill Nighy and Andrew Simpson as the key male characters are better than solid, with both adding colour and texture to the piece.

If there’s a difficulty with the film, it’s that Eyre seems to lose control of his material towards the end. While the build-up is measured, careful and intricate, the denouement is a frenzy of events; staccato scenes piling on top of each other.

That however is a mild annoyance more than anything in a film that proves an intelligent and incisive piece of cinema. If you’re a fan of Marber’s other work (Closer, for example), this will be right up your alley. For everyone else, while this certainly won’t be the lightest film you’ll see this year, it’s definitely one that rewards the effort to see it.

David Edwards

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Notes on a Scandal

Our rating:

Director: Richard Eyre
Cast: Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Juno Temple, Andrew Simpson and Bill Nighy
Release: Nationally on 15 February 2007
Rated: MA 15+

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