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Notes On a Scandal
By Stephen Farber
Brits have been a major factor in the Oscar race at least since Vivien Leigh beat out a gaggle of avid American actresses to snare the part of Scarlett O'Hara, and Anglophilia continues to rage this year. Notes on a Scandal seems likely to nab Judi Dench her fifth nomination, partly because she's playing such a different character from the endearing eccentrics and regal figures that she's incarnated in the past. Dench brings wit as well as vulnerability and menace to her depiction of Barbara Covett, a spinster teacher obsessed with a younger colleague, Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett). At first Barbara seems to be seeking a soulmate, but matters become more complicated when she discovers Sheba's affair with a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson) and decides to use this knowledge to intensify her hold over the younger woman. While the film is expertly crafted, it has unfortunate echoes of a notoriously homophobic movie from 1980, Windows, in which Elizabeth Ashley played a predatory lesbian setting her sights on helpless Talia Shire. Barbara is a kissing cousin to Ashley's psycho, though Dench finds a wealth of nuances in a character whom Sheba rightly calls a "vampire." Blanchett, Simpson and Bill Nighy as Sheba's husband also contribute astute portrayals in this compelling but creepy drama.
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