Notes on a Scandal: "A novice confessing to the Mother Superior"
That is how Barbara - the chillingly unreliable narrator of Notes on a Scandal, played by the pitch-perfect Judi Dench, describes her first in-depth conversation with Sheba, the new girl - sorry, teacher - at school.
Barbara quickly becomes her confidant, and records the minutiae of her and Sheba's life and conversations in a diary that will prove to be the undoing of both of their lives.
The film, adapted by Patrick Marber of Closer fame, from Zoe Heller's novel, follows the blossoming, and then abrupt severing, of the friendship between Barbara and Sheba, alongside Sheba's inability to break off her affair with a 15-year-old student.
Barbara and Sheba first encounter each other when the Barbara breaks up a fight between two boys in the latter's classroom. The scuffle had begun over a comment made about their teacher, and only later does Barbara - and the audience - realise the true significance of the remark and the reason the fight escalated. For lonely Barbara, however, the prospect of Sheba's friendship is a welcome respite from her empty life.
Barbara's discovery that the supposedly happily married mother-of-two is embroiled in an affair with the underage boy is the first shock of the novel, but this gradually becomes the less pressing concern, as the extent of Barbara's obsession with Sheba becomes more apparent.
As with the book, the character of Stephen, Sheba's schoolboy lover, is less than convincing, perhaps because his part mainly consists of asking Sheba if she can cook and sew one minute, then if she has time to meet him behind the bike sheds the next. One possible reason f
or his weak characterisation could be that Barbara is relaying Sheba's view of him to us, and it is clear that Barbara is not fond of the boy.
Bill Nighy, as Sheba's husband, is not what Barbara, or we, seeing Sheba through her eyes, expect. As Barbara puts it: "I'd anticipated a suave young lawyer and two perfect poppets. Not so." Instead, Sheba's husband is much older than her - and acutely aware of it. Her 16-year-old daughter shares a cigarettes with Barbara, and her young son has Down's Syndrome. His care meant that Sheba had stayed out of work for many years before taking on the art teacher role.
Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett are well cast in the two opposing roles, where, as the film's tagline puts it, Barbara tries to make a gain from Sheba's recklessness. Blanchett does a great English accent and moves between snatched scenes with schoolboy Stephen, moments of disclosure with Barbara and cosy home life with her family with ease.
However, it must be said that Dench steals every scene she is in, which really adds up to her nabbing the whole film. Her coolly witty and ironic voiceover does justice to the acerbic diary entries of the novel version, and her restrained body language in the earlier parts of the film hide Barbara's simmering emotions well. It makes her portrayal of Barbara falling to pieces, finally at Sheba's mercy in the latter part of the film, so much more nerve-wracking to watch. Still, the ending means gives you an idea that Barbara will recover from the unfortunate events surrounding Sheba's fate.
The DVD includes a featurette looking at the process of adapting the novel to the screen. Generally, this one would only be for fans of the book, but it is an interesting look at the challanges of taking a book that is so filtered through its narrator's distorted perception, and making this into something three-dimensional. There are also webisodes in which the cast and crew interview each other - worth it for some Bill Nighy out of put-upon-husband role.
For more information on the DVD, please see Amazon.co.uk.
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