Notes On A Scandal review

Based on Zoe Heller's best-selling 2003 novel of the same name (although it went under the moniker What Was She Thinking? in the United States), Richard Eyre's latest film has a very nasty lead character making the most of a very nasty situation.

Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett play two teachers in a North London school: the former a spinster who cares little about her lack of popularity or any modern attempts to reinvigorate the timetable, and the latter an arriviste art teacher, full of bright ideas, none of which are grounded in reality.

The two strike up an odd kinship, but with a hidden agenda on both sides. Dench's Barbara is a diary-keeper who also narrates the film, and it soon becomes clear that she has more than a work-related interest in Blanchett's Sheba. When she discovers that Sheba is conducting an affair with one of her young pupils, it leads her to actions not dissimilar to Valmont and Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Indeed the film does have a pleasing classical feel to it.

Barbara's action unleash terrible consequences for Sheba and her family (including an unusually shouty Bill Nighy as her husband), but they have the desired effect of bringing the two women together. Eyre keeps things ticking over nicely enough, and it's a good deal more entertaining than his last ponderous effort, 2003's Stage Beauty.

But it can't be denied that this is a dark film, which some viewers may find disturbing, as it largely deals with the manipulation of a flawed charcater by a flawed character. A solemn and sombre think-piece, rather than an enjoyable entertainment.

Paul Hurley