Notes on a Scandal (***1/2)

? Judy Dench plays the character who was the narrator of Zoë Heller’s novel of the same name. A teacher of history to surly adolescents, she writes copiously in her diary, eruditely but witheringly sizing up her fellow faculty, including the new arts teacher (Cate Blanchett). Seemingly as honest about herself as others, she’s aware of her reputation as respected, but not liked, and so welcomes the friendship offered by the most recent hire. But when she discovers her married colleague’s affair with a fifteen-year-old student, she sees it as a betrayal that it had been kept secret from her.

+ This movie works as a thriller but more so as a morality play that looks at its characters more deeply than the Jerry Springer premise would suggest. The two women are very different, but both cross social boundaries and pay the consequences. The heavy dose of narration that introduces the story could have seemed tedious were it not for the crisp, tart voice that screenwriter Patrick Narber has created for her. Dench’s performance is a tour de force that slowly peels away her character’s vulnerabilities and flaws. She’s the clearest villain of the piece, but she’s a little pathetic as well, which you don’t expect at the outset. The supporting characters are also noteworthy, Blanchett of course but also Bill Nighy as her significantly older husband. This is the sort of movie where you can have a wonderful time afterward dissecting it and arguing about how blameworthy each of the women is, how society should treat adult affairs with teenagers, and so on. Narber’s best known for the play and screenplay Closer, which tackled certain similar themes relating to trust, but this is a warmer movie with a more linear plot structure and a higher emotional peak. 
- It certainly didn’t ruin it for me, but a pivotal scene near the end requires an uncharacteristic sloppiness on the part of Dench’s character that seemed more convenient than likely.

= ***1/2 I found this movie, which has earned Oscar nominations for Dench, Blanchett, Narber, and composer Philip Glass, quite riveting. It’s unusual to see a movie that so particularly examines some unsavory behavior and yet expresses human desires that everybody has in some fashion.

IMDb link