Published Jan. 18, 2007 in Kansas City’s Sun Tribune, Sun Gazette and Liberty Tribune newspapers. 

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By Steve Crum 

It is not long into Notes on a Scandal that one discovers Dame Judi Dench is delivering one of the best acting turns of her illustrious career. Make that one of the best in film history. She is superb as Barbara Covett, a matronly British teacher who befriends and ultimately blackmails fellow instructor Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett in a strong supporting performance). 

Director Richard Eyre weaves Patrick Marber’s adapted screenplay slowly but steadily from the beginning of the new high school term in inner city London. We find veteran teacher Barbara arriving late at the opening faculty meeting and obviously at odds with the headmaster and paperwork protocols. Probably burnout is the best way to describe her demeanor. She is determined to do things her way, as she has done for decades, and she is proud of it. When the new art teacher Sheba is introduced, we hear Barbara’s piercing thoughts about her.

In fact, we hear those and other sarcastic musings, mostly about fellow faculty members, from the film’s opening. It seems Barbara is an avid journal writer, entering daily observations (hence the movie’s title) at home in the company of her pet kitty. Barbara has never married, but she keeps writing and pressed memorabilia of past close female relationships in dozens of filled diaries. Lesbianism is never specified in Notes on a Scandal, but it is obviously Barbara’s sexual preference. 

In contrast, Sheba is a free-spirited hetero, married to a man (Bill Nighy) 20 years her senior. They have a son with Down syndrome as well as a teenaged daughter. When Sheba befriends Barbara, it is not only a professional courtesy but out of need for friendship. 

When Barbara spies Sheba having sex with a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson) after hours in the art room, she soon contacts her new friend with warning of criminal prosecution. Now the story turns grim and threatening. Essentially blackmailing Sheba, Barbara makes her promise to end the affair immediately. In return, Barbara demands closer involvement in Sheba’s life in and out of school. That means becoming a frequent dinner guest with Sheba’s family, which rapidly wears thin with the husband. 

A particularly good sequence involves Barbara showing up on the sidewalk in front of Sheba’s home, demanding Sheba be with her that second instead of driving away to see her son’s play with the family. That is just the beginning of Sheba’s nightmare, which grows wickedly worse when Barbara discovers Sheba is still seeing her student.

In a role which would have suited Bette Davis in her Baby Jane persona, Dench’s psychotic Barbara is in contrast a layered and mannered portrayal. Her creepiness grows as the story unfolds. Her voice, at first tempered and low, becomes loud and erratic by film’s end. Barbara’s body language shows bolder with arms flailing, as she trudges while walking.

Is there a moment when Blanchett becomes Joan Crawford and has fisticuffs with Barbara? Close. This seductive psychological thriller is loaded with anticipation and payoff. 

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GRADE on A-F Scale: A-

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