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This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Absolutely the worst movie.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This is one of those movies in which its title really encapsulates what it is all about. But, to only say THAT would be a HUGE understatement!!Dame Judi Dench plays an old maid schoolteacher, Barbara Covett, who teaches in a modern private English school. Dench does the narration throughout the movie so, in a very real sense, we are taken into HER mind as she observes the motives, personalities, and weakness of the students and teachers that she comes into contact with. The narration is witty, digging, and cuts like a knife into the hidden treasure chests of the people around her. It doesn't take us long to find out that Barb is no ordinary sweet old spinster.As the story opens, Barb meets and observes the school's new art teacher, Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett). Sheba tries to fit in but soon encounters a melee with some of her male students in the library. Barb intervenes and the two become friends. When Sheba invites Barb to her home, she finds an unconventional family: an older husband, a sassy daughter, and a 14-year-old son with Down's Syndrome. As Shebra opens up her personal problems to Barbara, the two become friends. But, the nature of their friendship is tested when Barbara oversees Shebra in an uncompromising situation that could change each of their lives forever. The remainder of the movie examines more about the nature of these two characters. It is full of twists and turns that often leave you breathless. This is a fine example of a British thriller in which there may be one, or potentially has two femmes fatales.Aspects of this movie worth noting are the great screenplay enhanced by the minimalism of Philip Glass' musical score--perfect for this type of movie! The sound seemed a little loud in the theater where we were, but that might have been intentional because it only added to the drama.The story is taunt and the camera work is tight, rarely pulling back very far. This leaves us little time to rest or reflect, thus pulling us further and further into the story with each new discovery.

Notes On A Scandal using a technique developed by Eugene O'Neill in Strange Interlude tells the story of a pair of middle school teachers Judy Dench and Cate Blanchett. It is through Dench that we see the drama unfold. Dench between dialog narrates the story and in her narration speaks her real thoughts like O'Neill's characters in Strange Interlude.Dench is a frustrated old battle ax who is a lesbian. We never do learn whether she's ever had a relationship with another woman as a peer. From what we see of her character she's demanding and manipulative. Blanchett is a popular new art teacher who is going through her mid life crisis. She drifts into an affair with a 15 year old student Arthur Simpson whom she sees as an art protégé. Dench finds out about it, but she does not report it as her job required her to do. Instead she blackmails Blanchett, not directly as it were, but subtly calling herself Blanchett's friend and trying ever so hard to spin a web of trust. Sooner or later the move romantically will come. Dench also keeps a journal of this and these are the Notes On A Scandal.Besides Strange Interlude, Notes On A Scandal also bears comparison to the Vanessa Redgrave film, The Bostonians from the Eighties which is adapted from a Henry James novel. Young Maddeline Potter is caught between a life totally dedicated to the feminist movement with Vanessa Redgrave or romance with a courtly handsome southern lawyer in Christopher Reeve. Redgrave's character was quite manipulative although I think Dench wins the manipulation contest between the two of them.The way the film is written and structured Judy Dench is playing two roles almost at the same time. The character interacting with others and the one who is narrating the film through her notes. It's quite a task and got Ms. Dench an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.Probably Cate Blanchett should have been nominated in that category as well, but I guess so the two women wouldn't be competing against each other Blanchett got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Their scenes together truly sizzle, especially at the end.Fans of Judy Dench and Cate Blanchett will be well pleased with Notes On A Scandal.

In Notes on a Scandal, Judi Dench plays Barbara Covett, a spinster history teacher at a British public school, who narrates the story with tart, dolorous wit. A self-described "battle-axe", she is so ensconced by her own loneliness, so embittered by her inability to achieve intimacy with another human, that she has turned inwardly toxic. It doesn't help matters that she's a deeply closeted lesbian.Barbara's newest obsession is the school's new art teacher Sheba Hart (Blanchett), whose wealth and magnificence are a draught of nectar to her own drab existence. Sheba excites Barbara's silent fascination and derision by wafting sexily about the place with her liberal-patrician attitude, her hippy-dippy idealism, and her remarkable beauty. Barbara, who keeps a copious diary of her thoughts and feelings, becomes increasingly delusional about Sheba, concocting a fantasy life for the two of them, imagining her to finally be "the one". Never mind that Sheba is married with two kids - as far as Barbara is concerned, she'd be better off with Barbara. When she discovers Sheba's sensational love affair with one of her students, it's an opportunity Barbara seizes with relish, as we see her moral outrage turn to narcissistic manipulation as she tries to conceal their secret. Notes on a Scandal is about something deeply unlovely in human nature rarely explored by artists: the explosive combination of desire and social envy. The brilliance of the film's concept is matched by a powerful screenplay that proves to be a screen writing master-class from Patrick Marber who makes the subtleties obvious and sets up the story's twists and turns with unmistakable confidence. Director Richard Eyre, with unshowy authority, instills a mildly suspenseful quality to the movie, while imbuing it with enough restraint, pacing the proceedings with an eye for detail. The restraint successfully allows for several moments in which the characters erupt to be that much more jolting.The movie's driving force however is Dame Judi Dench, who is an absolute powerhouse as the repressed, predatory lesbian. We know fully well that Barbara is a kind of monster, but from the moment she cynically sizes up the year's new crop of students - "Here come the local pubescent proles - the future plumbers and shop assistants, and perhaps there's the odd terrorist, too" - she has us. And in Dench's hands, Barbara never lets us go; the acerbic wit never fails. But her biting remarks are always tempered by the sense of her bitter sadness, which in turn is tempered by her moments of uncanny perception. It's a brilliant role and a brilliant performance - witty, hateful and heartbreaking all at once. But it doesn't exist in a vacuum; Cate Blanchett, is every bit Dench's equal, showing great range in moments that demand release of vulnerability and pent-up passion, delivering a harrowing performance as the unwitting target in a tragically fraught relationship. Together, they are an absolute delight! Bill Nighy as Sheba's cuckolded husband displays great range in a relatively small part.Notes on a Scandal is a quintessential tale of twisted love, of festering secrets and emotional self-harm. Something so horrible and abject shouldn't be so compulsively watchable, and yet it is. Engrossing, bewildering, searing and shattering, this is a film that reverberates on every level.

Even though the setup is rather formulaic, NOTES ON A SCANDAL is a well-executed story about secrets and manipulative relationships, while also slipping in some commentary on gender and class. Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett star as high school teachers who become friends when the former finds about the latter's illicit relationship with a student. However, Judi Dench's character has motives of her own that are gradually revealed as the film progresses. For all of the film's trappings as this "friend becomes a stalker" type of story, Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett's performances anchor it in reality and give it a classy feeling that a lot of other similar films lack. I must say that I completely bought Judi Dench as an aging schoolteacher. Cate Blanchett also did a nice job in a role that I haven't really seen her play before, and a degree of vulnerability that she didn't really show in something like LORD OF THE RINGS. Seeing as her character gets caught doing something rather stupid, it would be easy to just dismiss her character as unlikeable from the get-go, but the way the plot develops actually makes her quite sympathetic (at least compared to Judi Dench's character). If there's anything I can find fault with, it's that the plot really doesn't aspire to be anything other than a melodramatic thriller. Thankfully, the performances and overall execution of the material, along with the direction and cinematography lend it some much-needed credibility. I also loved Philip Glass' score. Overall, NOTES ON A SCANDAL is quite predictable, but it sets itself apart by its pedigree in front of, and behind, the camera.