Starring: Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Tom Georgeson, Michael Maloney, Joanna Scanlan Directed By: Richard Eyre Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Label: 20th Century Fox Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: April 17, 2007 Running Time: 92 minutes Theatrical Release Date: 2006
Gold stars to all for this taut psychological thriller based on Zoe Heller's novel that 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, a frumpy, friendless, and flinty spinster who lives with her cat. A formidable presence, Barbara is standoffish with colleagues and not one for students to trifle with (not that they'd dare). Cate Blanchett, also an Oscar nominee and winner of several critics society awards for her impassioned performance, costars as Sheba Hart, the new, overwhelmed art teacher who first becomes enthrall to Barbara after she steps in to help Sheba discipline unruly students. Barbara cultivates a friendship, and insinuates herself into Sheba's chaotic life, which includes her older husband (Bill Nighy), teenage daughter, and a son with Down's syndrome. Then, Barbara catches the reckless Sheba in a compromising position with a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson). Seizing her opportunity, the calculating Barbara does not turn her in. Rather, she wants to "help" her. "She's the one I've been waiting for," she writes in the journals she meticulously keeps, and which provide, in voiceover, her corrosive commentary. This all sounds very Fatal Attraction, but no boiling rabbits, please; we're British. Philip Glass's Oscar-nominated score accentuates the growing menace. Though there is little in these characters to admire, (one would think GLAAD would have something to say about the predatory turn Barbara's character takes), Notes on a Scandal is a compelling tour-de-force for its Grade-A cast. --Donald Liebenson
Notes on a Scandal Extras
Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench on their characters in the film
Beyond Notes on a Scandal
Book to Movie Adaptations
More Cate Blanchett Films
What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal: A Novel
Stills from Notes on a Scandal
Product Description: Academy AwardJ winners Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett give wickedly entertaining 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. Dench mesmerizes as Barbara Covett a teacher who rules over her classroom with an iron fist yet leads a desperate solitary life outside it. That is until she meets radiant new art teacher Sheba Hart (Blanchett). Although at first overjoyed with her newfound kindred spirit when Barbara discovers that Sheba is having an affair with a teenage student her jealously and rage spiral out of control.System Requirements:Runtime: 121 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 024543438915 Manufacturer No: 2243891
Taut, suspenseful and well done Cate Blanchett plays an art teacher (Sheba) who inexplicably has a dalliance with a 15-year old student. Older faculty member Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) becomes aware of the affair and uses it as implied blackmail material to maneuver a close relationship.
Covett is an aging spinster, tormented by loneliness and carrying on an active interior life through her compulsive diary entries. When the affair is finally exposed, the consequences rip apart multiple relationships and set the stage for a disturbing pattern.
Judi Dench gives an absolutely devastating performance as spinster Covett. Sans makeup and with vice-over narration, Covett is a character that repulses and fascinates, even evoking some sympathy in her desperate search for human relationships.
Very good movie!
Very disturbing I love Judi Dench, but need to stick to movies like "Cranford" when I want to see her, I guess. This movie is very disturbing. Only one person seems to have a bit of moral character and that person is Sheba's husband, who reacts with understandable and justifiable rage when he learns of Sheba's affair (not to mention the touching scenes of him with his and Sheba's Downs Syndrome son). I have learned my lesson about R rated movies. In this film, the gory details are graphically shown--sexual scenes between Sheba and a 15 year old boy, the same boy using aggressive, vile sexual language, a very violent scene where Sheba is beaten by another woman. We even get to see Sheba sitting on a toilet and then wiping her butt! Now what did that add to the story? It also appeared that Sheba's 13 or 14 year old daughter is sexually active. When Barbara comes over for brunch, the dad says to the daughter "he could have stayed" which implied that the boyfriend had spent the night. In another scene, Sheba pulls something up off the floor in her daughter's room and hands it to her daughter with a smile--I'm not certain, but were those boxer shorts? How I wish that we could have a smart, suspenseful thriller with great acting--and the acting is good in this movie--without feeling like you're in a cesspool with the characters.
Tightly Wound With today's spate of teacher/student sex scandals, this one feeds the appetite to understand how these things happen. You'll hate Judy Dench, but her acting is top-notch. The plot has a nice twist, not well concealed. The 'romances,' both of them, are not especially believable. A freak show, really. But worth watching, and definitely compelling.
Worst piece of trash in years When I rented this is came highly acclaimed. Watching this felt like a two hour dramatized episode of Jerry Springer. Absolutely nothing of real value in this film. None of the characters have morals. You can't even use them as societal harpees because we spend the first forty minutes of the film getting to like them. Horrible story. Awful direction. Atrocious editing. Avoid at all costs!!
Earth-shaking drama I'm sure most people already knew the outcome of the story before buying or watching this DVD. That being said, the actings are superb in almost every way. The most steamy part of this whole affair is the kissing and fondling, and they are tastefully done. For those that wished to see more skin, you can join one of the many adult sites that offer video clips of hot female teachers having explicit sexual relationships with her male students.
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