Recensioni degli utenti

I enjoyed this movie a great deal. The acting was excellent across the board and the story about the relationship of two school teachers and what transpires between them is involving. The problem for me was that in reading the reviews for the film I found that the reviewers revealed way too much about the plot. I found this to be one of those times when it was best to know as little as possible going in since there was a chance that knowing plot points might signal later revelations. Simply put the reviewers said too much so after a certain point it became clear what was going to happen, The result was that I enjoyed the film less than I might have other wise. Take my advice ignore what people say about the film and just see it

Judi Dench and Cate Blanchet both have played the fierce Queen Elizabeth I in their careers and here they fight for the crown in a royal match that is as entertaining as it is jarring. Two civilized women breaking into very uncivilized patterns of behavior. A highbrow story with a tabloid sensibility performed with truth and gusto. Bette Davis would have killed for Judi Dench's part at the time of Baby Jane and although there is nothing grotesque in the way Dame Judy presents us her monster, the monster herself is grotesque. She explains, in a witty and consistent voice over, what's in her mind. The center of her intentions become so appallingly clear to us that Cate Blanchet's slowness to catch up becomes exasperating. Maybe her suffocating domestic situation throws her into the arms of her absurdity. She seems a woman searching for validation without any real vocation. A teacher who doesn't believe she can teach, a mediocre wife a light weight mother. Judi Dench is relentlessly solid in her madness made of longing and fears. I left the theater with a desperate need for a double scotch on the rocks, just to take a strange taste off my mouth.

The bitter, cynical and lonely Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) is a tough and conservative teacher near to retirement that is loathed by her colleagues and students. In the loneliness of her apartment, she spends her spare time writing her journal, taking care of her old cat Portia and missing her special friend Jennifer Dodd. When Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) joins the high-school as the new art teacher, Barbara dedicates her attention to the newcomer, writing sharp and unpleasant comments about her behavior and clothes. When Barbara helps Sheba in a difficult situation with two students, the grateful Sheba invites her to have lunch with her family. Sheba introduces her husband and former professor Richard Hart (Bill Nighy), who is about twenty years older than she; her rebellious teenager daughter Polly (Juno Temple); and her son Ben (Max Lewis) that has Dawn Syndrome. Barbara becomes close to Sheba, but when she accidentally discovers that Sheba is having an affair with the fifteen year-old student Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson), Barbara sees the chance to manipulate and get closer to Sheba, hiding the secret from the school headmaster. When Portia dies and Sheba does not stay with Barbara in the veterinary office to see Ben in a theater play, Barbara plots a Machiavellian revenge against Sheba, creating a scandal and consequent turmoil in their lives.

"Note on a Scandal" is a gem to be discovered by movie lovers. This tale of obsession, loneliness and Machiavellism is supported by a magnificent screenplay and awesome performances of Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, two of the best actresses of the cinema industry in the present days. The story has drama, romance, passion, lust, obsession and eroticism disclosed in an adequate pace. The development of the lead characters is perfect, disclosing two lonely and obsessed women, one compulsive and loathed by everybody around her, and the other that is the object of desire of the old teacher, her husband and a young student. The result is one of the best movies that I have recently seen. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Notas Sobre Um Escândalo" ("Notes on a Scandal")

What a treat to watch three of the best actors of our time in the same movie! Judy Dench is an international treasure; Cate Blanchett never looked better or created a more compelling character in any of her other movies, and I had the good fortune to discover Bill Nighy on Broadway in "The Vertical Hour" with Julianne Moore the night before I saw "Notes from a Scandal," and I now want to see everything he's done. A superlative creator of character. "Notes from a Scandal" tells us a lot about the "British" penchant for relishing "scandals" (they invented the tabloid press) and also about the odd, intersecting relationships that have become a nearly commonplace reality in the contemporary world. Both Blanchett and Dench (as Sheba and Barbara) teach at the same Islington secondary school. And both, in very different ways, embark on "inappropriate" relationships that create turmoil in their lives and the lives of their community. Judy Dench conveys the desperate loneliness of her character's life and a remarkable scene of her smoking a cigarette in a bathtub conveys the distinction between her kind of loneliness--an older, unattractive, single woman with no real connections in life--and the more endurable kinds of loneliness that many of us share. This is a gripping film that moves crisply from one scene to the next, missing only a very few beats along the way. A must see.

Certainly a very stylish drama, riveting and brilliant, rising above the modern-day thrillers due to stunning performances of two very gifted actresses. It's both dramatic and funny, Judy Dench and Cate Blanchett are delicious and so talented that they turn a misanthrope cat and mouse game into a politically correct entertaining account. This strong emotional battle is not only something about teacher-student sex, it's also an obsessing blackmail. Without exaggerating it could be deemed "memorable", as revelations abound, tempers flare all the time and every single confidence is shared. Never boring and deep.

Watching the emotionally intense black comedy, "Notes on a Scandal," you, too, may feel like its main character, Barbara, who reflects in one of her many voice-overs, "The opera has begun and I have a front-row seat." Directed by Richard Eyre ("Iris," "Stage Beauty" and the exceptional TV version of "Suddenly, Last Summer" with Maggie Smith and Natasha Richardson), "Notes" bravely wades into modern-day Grand Guignol as the tension between its two female stars heads inevitably toward a showdown.

Patrick ("Closer") Marber's melodramatic screenplay cleverly makes use of Barbara's voice-overs as she scribbles in her diary and makes jaded, bitter observations about the world around her. Abundant voice-overs usually point toward shortcomings in a drama, but here they provide irony and serve to enhance the dialog.

In her juiciest role since "Mrs Brown," Judi Dench brings an element of sympathy to Barbara, a closeted, self-loathing lesbian school teacher attracted to the new art teacher, Sheba, played by Cate Blanchett. Madly hoping to wrest the heterosexual Sheba from her husband and two children, one of whom has Down Syndrome, Barbara stumbles upon Sheba's sexual dalliance with a 15-year-old student. In a Machiavellian turn, Barbara hopes to manipulate Sheba by maintaining her secret . . . with strings attached. Need I add that all does not go well?

In fact, escalating histrionic fireworks ensue. Blanchett holds her own in this emotional and physical battle royal, capping her incredible year (2006) that also included outstanding performances in "Babel" and "The Good German." As Sheba's husband, Richard, Bill Nighy also comes through with a powerhouse performance. The moody score by Philip Glass is icing on the cake.

At a tidy 92 minutes, "Notes on a Scandal" is highly concentrated and vivid. The recently announced Golden Globe nominations include Dench, Blanchett and Marber, so we can expect Oscar nods as well.

Barbara Covett is a history teacher who lives alone and is comparatively friendless. The one woman she was friendly with has moved on to another school in a better area but she still has her cat and her diary. When young art teacher Sheba Hart starts in the new term, Barbara keeps her distance to feel her out but she finds quite a nice woman with whom she thinks she can start a friendship. However the discovery of a scandalous secret in Sheba's life means that the relationship takes a darker turn.

From a distance you could see this film as yet another entry into the Fatal Attraction / Single White Female genre in the way that it is essentially about a "normal" relationship that turns sour as it becomes steadily more evident that the "normal" person is actually a tad unhinged. However does this mean that we are going through the motions here and that we will end up with a Dench/Blanchett fight like it's some sort of Bafta Special of Celebrity Wrestling? Well thankfully no. The narrative does head this way to a point of course but it remains engaging and grounded, mainly down to the fact that the story is not strictly one of this specific relationship but rather it is the story of Barbara. This is clear from the fact that the only narration or inner thoughts we get to hear are from her and, although it is not told from her perspective, it is clear that she is the subject of the film rather than Sheba (who is Barbara's subject).

The film paints out a convincingly real Barbara and in a way she reminded me a little of the "Lady of Letters" from Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. In her own world and journal she has developed this aloof attitude of one who is lonely but has convinced herself that she is more than happy to be so. But yet she also still has this edge of desperation, of being so much more needy than she will ever recognise. It is a very well written part and it goes without saying that Dench plays it perfectly – delivering in the detail and reigning in any potential for "bunny boiling". The story is well delivered and it is the characters that prevent you really questioning the internal logic too much because it does all convince both within itself but more or less within the wider world as well.

Eyre's direction is good in terms of controlling his cast even if it does feel every inch a BBC TV film that has gotten ahead of itself. Blanchett works well opposite Dench; she knows that the film is not about her character even if her character is key in telling it and her performance is pitched well to reflect this. As another user has already humorously said, Bill Nighy is good as the Bill Nighy character but I was upset that Phil Davis did not get more to do as he is very good at the type of character he played here. Simpson is well cast and makes his character work pretty well considering the demands put on him by the narrative – something about his Northern Irish accent that makes me believe it (!).

Overall then an engaging and well-delivered film. At first glance it is another crazy stalker movie but really it is much more than that as the characters are well written and convincing (even if aspects of the narrative aren't to the same degree) and the strength of the lead performances almost goes without saying as a given.

"Notes on a Scandal" seeks to transform what was apparently a singular epistolary journal-novel (which I have not read) into a multidimensional theatrical masterpiece. And well-crafted indeed is this little psycho-sexual thriller. Regrettably, by the end, digesting the substance is akin to the sensation biting into a long, juicy red steak, only to discover that a couple of millimeters down lies an inedible and unsatisfying web of sinewy cartilage and bone.

Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett are indeed fabulous, although it is hard to imagine either of them being anything less. In spite of their loathsome behaviour--Dench's subversive lesbian seductions and Blanchett's pædophilia--they manage to inject enough humour and charm into their roles to become multifaceted and complex characters. Blanchett's could easily have been nothing more than a whiny, malcontented upper-middle-class shrew, but her naïve, self-conscious flightiness and aesthetic sense are shown to be but manifestations of a longing for true, substantive beauty--and it's easy to identify with her husband, her young lover and her colleague in being enamored of her. (Too easy, actually, given the rather graphic depictions of her affair with Irish lad Steven Connolly).

But it is Judi Dench's character who really stands out. "Notes on a Scandal" attracted a bit of controversy from those who felt its depiction of "repressed lesbianism" wasn't "progressive" enough for the "Gay is Good" times of "Brokeback Mountain." But while arguably a large part of the psychological twist of the film does, indeed, play off of the audience's prejudice against homoeroticism as inherently perverse (not, I confess, a prejudice that offends myself), I would not used "repressed" to describe Dench's character; "closeted" would be more accurate. She is perfectly self-aware of her desires, and she does not seem at all troubled at the inherent conflict between indulging them and nurturing her steadfastly conservative worldview. She seems to fervently believe in the latter. Her character is truly enigmatic, and captivating: it is quite easy to see how Blanchett's could have been so drawn in to her world and missed--or willfully denied--the signs of where this road was really headed.

Regrettably, however, once the film has had enough of exploring these two characters, it abruptly cuts itself off with a climax that turns on a rather incredulous and sloppy premise completely contradictory to Dench's prior development. If Blanchett and Dench really had been fleshed out to the max--which I'm not exactly sure of--why not spend a bit more time exploring Connelly, his family, Blanchett's husband, perhaps? But granting this one major misstep, the ending that follows is "logical," so to say, though hardly satisfactory. We were given the impression that the film set itself up for a deeper or more psychological reading and we are sorely disappointed. "Notes on a Scandal" is a good non-date thriller for those who will not be mind-warped by rather intense depictions of cradle-robbing, but it cannot make the list of "Great Cinema."

This is a story told through the proper subjective medium, film, with such painful, cynical candor for how Barbara has spent a life disabusing herself of any rose-tinted notion of life or people. The price? Absolute, utter loneliness. The dynamic human images we see our narrated by the day-by-day items in the diary she zealously keeps as a sanctuary, and an affirmation. The movie fixes on acts of indiscretion and disloyalty, entailing not just our scathingly wise narrator and her new teaching colleague Sheba, but Sheba's husband, the headmaster, a teacher infatuated with Sheba, and a 15-year-old student. Each believes their reasons are sincere, but are all entrenched in variations of self-deception. As Barbara says, in one of the most tellingly human things I've ever heard in a movie, "It takes courage to recognize the real as opposed to the convenient."

Dench and Blanchett, as Barbara and Sheba, share not only a gift for deep behavioral detail but a skill at withholding or telegraphing charm and beauty, as required. This may be one of the numerous reasons why they're as compelling as they are. It's definitely part of why this is some of their finest work. It's part of the drama's mechanism. Were Sheba not the breed of beauty she is, a naive, impressionable, coddled pixie, then we couldn't appreciate how intensely Barbara wants her. It's not exactly love so much as controlling, envious fixation on Sheba's stunning upper-class ease. And were Barbara not a teakettle of seclusion boiling through decades of disillusionment, we couldn't identify with how distorted the manifestation of that affection becomes.

That's the marvel of the movie: It's about the venomous influence of loneliness, viewed through a tale of two people in love. But unfortunately for both, not with one another. Sheba becomes smitten with a cute but cagey student. Played with what seems like natural hyper-confidence by Andrew Simpson, he sees an occasion in the way she looks at him. She has no clue of how defenseless she truly is. It's not only dishonest and unethical, she tells herself, it's totally ludicrous, but when he cups her face and says, "You're beautiful, Miss," she melts.

Barbara, meanwhile, fosters an obsession in her diary, relating thoughts precariously bordering on fantasy. Barbara's seclusion within the school is total, but Sheba is somebody who hasn't experienced her acidity. Barbara can smother someone with good turns and not be rejected. She helps Sheba win control of her students. "One soon learns that teaching is crowd control. We're a branch of social services." Sheba asks her to Sunday roast, where Barbara describes Sheba's family with characteristically rancorous humor. Dench's delivery of these delectably spiteful lines is an triumph in vocal meticulousness and tone that is its own prize. Even when this apparent ice queen drops minute words of vulnerability like "Is that why she hasn't returned my calls?" there's an extra intensity in how strongly we can all relate to the insecurities of her inner voice.

There are giftedly handled, extraordinarily candid scenes of rage, humiliation and disgrace, and cruel physical and emotional clashes of immense force. The teachers are somewhat caricatured, but that's because they're filtered through Barbara's misanthropic viewpoint. If it's her omniscient voice we're hearing, it's through her omniscient eyes we're seeing what she describes, and it's the figures who allow her access to their humanity who have profundity and delicacy in their depictions. A wholly earnest Dench brings to Barbara that frigid reserve that's somehow one with a despairing need for consolation and affection. Early on, Sheba is basically an alluring figurine, watched from afar. When our voyeuristic chronicler discovers Sheba's business with the student, Sheba grows immense dimension.

We start to see Sheba's own manner of advantaged lonesomeness…or just tedium. "Marriage, kids, it's wonderful," she presumingly explains, "but it doesn't give you meaning." Blanchett brilliantly uses her character's advantages to betray her. The grim lesson she's about to learn from Barbara seems belated, even valuable. People like Sheba, according to Barbara, and I'm sure you'll agree, think they know loneliness, but they know nothing of planning one's whole weekend around a laundry errand, or being so continually untouched that the inadvertent sweep of a stranger's hand ignites years of sexual longing.

What I adore about the film is this discerningly intricate moral kaleidoscope weaved in completely modern domestic terms. It's going on in your neighborhood, not just Islington. There are scandals like this every year, and we dismissively conjecture from what little we gather. The cunning concept here is that we're seeing it through the sieve of Barbara, and whose transgressions transcend contemporary know-it-all assumptions.

NOTES ON A SCANDAL is a Judi Dench "triumph" of brilliant wit, pain and a satanic passion for a woman out of reach in Cate Blanchett. Her "Judas" to her supposed friend and fellow teacher is an acting performance which will land Ms. Dench right back in "Oscar country". Too bad it is in the same year as Helen Mirren's magnificent "Queen" as Dench gives a show here in NOTES ON A SCANDAL that leaves you quite breathless to the last and final scene and fade out.

Patrick Marber delivers a deliciously wicked, witty and crisply written script in NOTES, and it only enhances his reputation for giving an audience a story well developed and with characters that you can't take your eyes off on the screen. His writing in CLOSER was so brilliant and clever, but in NOTES ON A SCANDAL he hands Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett words that are zingers and with a strong blend of anger, pain and humor. Please, Patrick, gives us another film quickly! The "teacher/student" romance was well developed and the chemistry between the two actors was believable and very sexual, and one could understand the youthful passion delivered by a young man with a strong mind and body. I did at times have to listen carefully to the young actor's lines, but he delivered them like a pro.

In the weeks ahead, I anticipate a "roar from the crowd" for this very dark and witty Judi Dench performance and who knows, she may upset "The Crown" in the end come Oscar time.

Judi Dench heads up a strong cast as Barbara Covett, a Secondary school teacher seeing out her final year in the job, when a younger attractive art teacher Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) arrives and turns her somewhat small world on its head.

Sheba's gaining attention from all quarters but at least its adding some zeal to her otherwise dull bourgeois existence. Unfortunately some of it is coming from fifteen year old Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson) and she can't or won't say no. Barbara is never far away and makes an unpleasant discovery. She soon realizes that this could be an opportunity, if she is prepared to make it as one. Both women are unstable and their union is destined to be a disastrous one.

Patrick Marber (Closer) wrote the screenplay based upon Zoe Heller's novel. Marber writes exquisitely amusing dialog and Judi Dench gets all the best lines. She dominates every scene she is in. Cate Blanchett is competent too and is always a pleasure to watch, though she has been better.

The real problem lies in the story. While it's meaty enough for a novel, there isn't enough going on for a screenplay. It doesn't go far enough and barely limps out to 90 minutes. We cannot help but feel that we may have been slightly cheated. A sub-plot is missing and more depth from some of the other characters. Bill Nighy, for example, is brilliant when he's around but we don't see him enough. Same goes for headmaster Sandy (Michael Maloney). All has been put to one side so the stars can carry on with the theatrics. He's getting there, but Marber is yet to step out of the theater and embrace film. Closer, in point, belonged on the stage.

This is still a worthwhile film with some standout performances by some of the best actors working today. There's also a brilliant score from the ever remarkable Phillip Glass (The Hours, Koyaanisqatsi). You'll recognize his signature tunes from the first note.

What we have here is good, but it doesn't delve deep enough. We're left feeling a little empty. It's like the main course without the side dishes.

Every film should aspire to be as satisfying as this one is - on every level, and there are so many layers to it all. Nothing is as it appears and the film unwinds in the form of comments and voice-overs from the many journals of the protagonist.

Judi Dench, yet again, sinks her teeth into the part of Barbara Covett, a cynical and acerbic history teacher putting in time in an inner city school.

Enter Cate Blanchett, playing Sheba Hart, the new art teacher, fragile, naive, innocent and hopeful. Or is she? Barbara quickly ensconces herself into Sheba's life, becoming confidante and friend.

And then the plot thickens and assumes the intensity of a thriller as Sheba's life starts to fall apart, secretly abetted by Barbara. The tension does not let up until the very last frame and the viewer is never quite sure where this ride is going.

Sheba and Barbara are very alike at their cores, there is a fragile 'fatal attraction' theme running through their relationship, shadowed by Sheba's impossible affair with a fifteen year old boy which is in turn shadowed by her Down's Syndrome son who is of an age with her student, and again this is shadowed by her daughter's coming of age love troubles and overall the shadow of her own marriage to a much older man, who left his wife and children for her teenage self. I found all of these themes winding again and again throughout the film. The characters are fully rounded and indeed are also shown happy in the bosoms of their individual families but with a distance portrayed as if they are never quite sure of their places within them - always a distraction and secrets.

Barbara has her shadows too and they start to trickle through and become more vocalized and by others, as the stories unfold.

Enough said without spoilers. Bill Nighy, as Sheba's husband ably enhances the two astonishing performances of the female leads.

Movie making at its finest. This is being shown in two theatres in the same complex where I saw it and both were packed. It is very heartening to see a character driven and challenging movie being so popular.

10 out of 10. Superlative, down to the music by Philip Glass.

I saw this at a preview last night. It is a brilliant, absorbing little piece from Zoe Heller's novel about a teacher (Cate Blanchett, looking stunning) who has an affair with a 15 year old pupil and the effect this has on her relationship with a bitter, older teacher seeking selfishly for love (Judy Dench, looking 100). Great performances all round, with special mention to Bill Nighy in the Bill Nighy role. The script (Patrick Marber) is faithful to the book but enjoyable though the book was the film is actually - for a change - even better. Beautifully filmed in North London and Eastbourne (presumably the school scenes) this movie is definitely a must see.

This film is about a teacher having sex with a 15 year old schoolboy, with drastic consequences.

The acting in this film is absolutely amazing. Cate Blanchett does very well as a lost and lonely woman, trapped in a less than satisfying marriage and the burden to care for a son with Down Syndrome. Her emotions are heartfelt and real, especially after she finds out the candid intentions of Judi Dench. Judi Dench on the other hand, plays a cunning woman with an unusual interest in Cate Blanchett. Her smile and looks are cunning in pivotal scenes. The scene where Judi Dench reaches out her hand over Cate Blanchett conveys a lot of unsaid undercurrents between the two characters. The plot itself is dramatic and gripping as well. This film should have won more Oscars!

Kate Blanchett and Judi Dench are two of my favorite actresses. I've been a fan of Judy since finding "As Time Goes By" reruns on PBS and of Cate since "Oscar and Lucinda". So I was jazzed to see this movie ever since seeing the preview a month or so ago. Most of the story was well-written and the leading ladies were stell as they always are. If you're a fan of British cinema over the last 10 years you will enjoy seeing some familiar faces from other quality films. But there are two major flaws for me. I never quite bought the attraction of Cate to the young boy. He had the right look but he seemed too shallow and uninteresting to actually catch the eye of someone as fetching as Cate. And lastly I came away from the film feeling much more sympathy for Judy's old scold than Cate's spoiled destructive brat. I'm going to fish around the comments and see if anyone agrees with me on that last point but I suspect not.

Without a doubt this year's Academy Awards will be a show to watch. You may want to turn the spot lights to the "BEST ACTRESS IN LEADING ROLE" nomination, because if you saw "The Queen" and loved Helen Mirren, you ain't seen nothing' yet. Go watch "Notes on a Scandal" with Dame Judi Dench at helm, and make sure to bring your casket with you, because you may die of watching a movie that good.

Years ago I went to see a play in a theater. At some point in the show, the grandmother character had to sweep the floor and when she was done, she looked around to make sure nobody was looking and threw the dirt under the carpet. Everyone in the audience laughed. Later I learned that in theater "language" it also may mean that there are hidden secrets in that family.

The director Richard Eyre,who is known mostly for his theater/Broadway work, seems to build this amazing film based on that little theater shtick, and fills the film with the darkness under the carpet, puts us right there and makes us face that dirt. The characters of the young teacher played by Cate Blanchett and older teacher played by M. Judi Dench are impeccable and you can't take your eyes off them. I, personally, think that Dench's performance is one of the finest I have ever seen.

I wouldn't want to spoil the movie for you and give out details, however if you are looking for watching a powerful drama that will shock and thrill and move you with its message, execution and the story, please read no further. Stand up, get dressed and go to see "Notes on a Scandal" right now.

9/10

Crisp dialogue and virtuoso performances make this film enjoyable but it leaves one with a sort of cinematic indigestion. Perhaps it is the atmosphere of cynical mean-spiritedness that ruins so much contemporary British art -as though truth were nasty, a bitter medicine that had to be taken for one's own good. While Judi Dench has a romp with the part of the repressed, evil Barbara Covett. Cate Blanchett's Sheba Hart is so underwritten that her character doesn't stand a chance. When the story starts to liven up every character morphs into an embarrassing pantomime stereotype. The Philip Glass score sounds as if it had been waiting for years in his deep freeze to be used, it is too loud and has nothing to do with the film. Too bad, there is a lot of great talent involved here and ultimately it all seems wasted.