Four gold stars for Notes On A Scandal!
I watched the film last night and was blown away by Judi Dench's performance. It's unusual
that a jaded ex film theory student like myself is blown away like that, and although I do truly always love Dame Judi, this was the penultimate character for her I thought.
Breathtakingly vicious and manipulative, her Barbara is as layered as any real live human being, unusual for a film script these days. In fact, the layers of each main character in the film, Barbara, Sheba and Steven, are peeled away like the skin of an onion-- as the film progresses we get deeper and deeper into their psyches and man, are they all twisted!
The are also all twisted up in the affair that art teacher Sheba (Cate Blanchett) is carrying on
with her seemingly abused 15 year old student, Steven. Lonely and intense fellow teacher Barbara befriends Sheba, who she alternatively loves and hates for her beauty and bourgeois sensibilities, and she uses their closeness to pull Sheba further and further into her web of neediness when she discovers the affair.
I watched the film last night and was blown away by Judi Dench's performance. It's unusual
that a jaded ex film theory student like myself is blown away like that, and although I do truly always love Dame Judi, this was the penultimate character for her I thought. Breathtakingly vicious and manipulative, her Barbara is as layered as any real live human being, unusual for a film script these days. In fact, the layers of each main character in the film, Barbara, Sheba and Steven, are peeled away like the skin of an onion-- as the film progresses we get deeper and deeper into their psyches and man, are they all twisted!
The are also all twisted up in the affair that art teacher Sheba (Cate Blanchett) is carrying on
with her seemingly abused 15 year old student, Steven. Lonely and intense fellow teacher Barbara befriends Sheba, who she alternatively loves and hates for her beauty and bourgeois sensibilities, and she uses their closeness to pull Sheba further and further into her web of neediness when she discovers the affair.