Notes on a Scandal
So last night I headed out to see Notes on a Scandal.* And here I am this morning, sipping tea, and wondering if I should recommend the flick to you or not, despite brilliant performances by Judi Dench, masterful as always, and Bill Nighy, who appears to be soaring into continued career highlights (and in this flick also does not need to have dangly things on his face, always a plus) and others. They provide several laughs; the acting is strong; those of you who like bare young men's chests will find tidbits to enjoy here.
And yet.
Dench plays Barbara, a not all that repressed lesbian who has settled to teach in a high school, clearly not a very good one, even apart from the fact that the school utterly fails to notice that one of its teachers is having a swinging time with a 15 year old. The teacher would be Cate Blanchett, who does manage to look like one of those hot teachers teenagers would have a crush on, and the film gives some backstory explaining why she in turn might be willing to risk everything to have a bit of fun with a 15 year old male student even if I kept mentally protesting, "Really! Bring along an air mattress at least! They're really easy to blow up and they can be stowed away and hidden in very very small places! That can't be good for your back!" The fifteen year old shows us his chest. It's a good chest, and I checked with Internet Movie Database: alas, he's still jailbait (kinda one of the points of the film) but that does mean that we can assume that his back, at least, can handle wild sex in train yards.
The movie is, however, not primarily interested in the back problems of 40 year olds having wild sex with 15 year olds in train yards, which is perhaps as well. It instead focuses on Barbara's growing and deluded obsession with Sheba, an obsession that grows, and grows, filling the movie with tension and gripping excitement and growing drama and dire cat illnesses and ominous looking garden shovels and -
-- and then it all just….whimpers out.
I'm not going to give away the ending here, in part because, unfortunately, the film does not have much of an ending to give away. And this is a problem. I left the film wanting more, wanting something more punchy, more satisfying, more - more. (And one part of the ending needs to have a bit more explanation for believability.)
Second, the film is, I think, meant to focus on the danger, the obsession, and the manipulation of Dench's character, which would work better if not for the slight problem that Blanchett's character is in a position to be blackmailed only because she's been sleeping with someone less than half her age, which puts a bit of a damper on any attempt to make Dench's character look villainous. Third, the depiction of Barbara as a repressed, close to insane mostly virgin lesbian left me uneasy; the portrayal resurfaces far too many lesbian stereotypes. You know the ones. And an opportunity to explore the strong whiff of hypocrisy and false standards, where it's more shocking for an older woman to seduce a younger man than vice versa, is briefly mentioned, but then dropped.
So, enjoyable performances, flat ending. Watch on DVD, if it's your kinda thing.
* (Yes, yes, this did indeed mean that I sacrificed seeing a certain sporting event that apparently happened last night, but, you know, Judi Dench in fine form versus a team that can't even identify the correct color of a gator, which, for the record, is black, not green, and Judi Dench wins every time.)
And yet.
Dench plays Barbara, a not all that repressed lesbian who has settled to teach in a high school, clearly not a very good one, even apart from the fact that the school utterly fails to notice that one of its teachers is having a swinging time with a 15 year old. The teacher would be Cate Blanchett, who does manage to look like one of those hot teachers teenagers would have a crush on, and the film gives some backstory explaining why she in turn might be willing to risk everything to have a bit of fun with a 15 year old male student even if I kept mentally protesting, "Really! Bring along an air mattress at least! They're really easy to blow up and they can be stowed away and hidden in very very small places! That can't be good for your back!" The fifteen year old shows us his chest. It's a good chest, and I checked with Internet Movie Database: alas, he's still jailbait (kinda one of the points of the film) but that does mean that we can assume that his back, at least, can handle wild sex in train yards.
The movie is, however, not primarily interested in the back problems of 40 year olds having wild sex with 15 year olds in train yards, which is perhaps as well. It instead focuses on Barbara's growing and deluded obsession with Sheba, an obsession that grows, and grows, filling the movie with tension and gripping excitement and growing drama and dire cat illnesses and ominous looking garden shovels and -
-- and then it all just….whimpers out.
I'm not going to give away the ending here, in part because, unfortunately, the film does not have much of an ending to give away. And this is a problem. I left the film wanting more, wanting something more punchy, more satisfying, more - more. (And one part of the ending needs to have a bit more explanation for believability.)
Second, the film is, I think, meant to focus on the danger, the obsession, and the manipulation of Dench's character, which would work better if not for the slight problem that Blanchett's character is in a position to be blackmailed only because she's been sleeping with someone less than half her age, which puts a bit of a damper on any attempt to make Dench's character look villainous. Third, the depiction of Barbara as a repressed, close to insane mostly virgin lesbian left me uneasy; the portrayal resurfaces far too many lesbian stereotypes. You know the ones. And an opportunity to explore the strong whiff of hypocrisy and false standards, where it's more shocking for an older woman to seduce a younger man than vice versa, is briefly mentioned, but then dropped.
So, enjoyable performances, flat ending. Watch on DVD, if it's your kinda thing.
* (Yes, yes, this did indeed mean that I sacrificed seeing a certain sporting event that apparently happened last night, but, you know, Judi Dench in fine form versus a team that can't even identify the correct color of a gator, which, for the record, is black, not green, and Judi Dench wins every time.)