Notes On A Scandal

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34536171.post-1167605841898273682006-12-31T17:52:00.000-05:002007-06-05T01:41:28.891-04:002007-06-05T01:41:28.891-04:00Notes On A Scandal<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/206/3807/1600/519616/notesonascandal_posterbig.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/206/3807/400/342643/notesonascandal_posterbig.jpg" border="0" /></a>Notes on a Scandal is pure melodrama, but fortunately it’s the good kind of melodrama, the kind with loquacious characters in excitingly calamitous circumstances. Anyone who senses they would scoff at such falsified intensities should stay clear of this film, but lovers of tightly scripted and well acted dangerous liaisons should quite easily fall in love with this movie. Writer Patrick Marber’s previous screenplay adaptation, Closer, is probably a good frame of reference for those unsure of where they stand on the matter. Judi Dench gives a real wallop of a twisted performance as Barbra, a strict teacher at a London school who befriends the school’s new art teacher, Sheba, (Cate Blanchett) and slowly reveals certain genuinely chilling sociopathic tendencies. When Sheba begins an affair with a young student, Barbra takes it upon herself to use the incident to keep Sheba in her debt. “I could gain everything by doing nothing” Barbara says in her narration. It’s Dench’s movie to control and she makes it something extraordinary. From the scowling, cruel hearted demeanor of Barbra’s darkest moments to the odd, uncomfortable humor of watching the rigid schoolteacher attempt to dance, it’s all just so eerily perfect. It’s rare to find such humanity and complexity in cinematic stalkers. She’s creepy and unsettling, but we still relate to her in an interesting and unnerving sort of way. Despite her obvious issues with mental health, she does have a very keen sense of perception and an initially enjoyable straightforward demeanor. What the film does most brilliantly is quietly disarm her, making us see bit by bit the cracks in her logic and the corruption of her agenda until we realize that we’ve been wooed by a crazy woman. It lures us in as she lures in her prey, with a delightfulness that makes us forget the minor quirks and ticks. Watching the wonderful Cate Blanchett finally explode in agony against Barbra for all of her obscenely vicious abuses of power is like a giant release for everyone observing the film. She’s a sly predator who has trapped us all in her warped little game. This is not so much a story about scandal, as it is about the way people manipulate and betray one another in ways that seem (to themselves) utterly logical. There’s no moustache twirling villain here, but rather merely people selfishly aiming to serve their own needs and destroying others in the process. Grade: APetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07962237791468225160noreply@blogger.com1