Notes on a Scandal
**
I read Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller and loved it, so I was really looking forward to the film version.
I was disappointed. The performances are fantastic, but the adaptation and direction were less so.
The story is as follows: Sheba (Kate Blanchett), a middle-class art teacher in her thirties, has an affair with a 15 year old male pupil. Barbara (Judi Dench), a school mistress in her sixties, is obsessed with Sheba. When she discovers the affair, she uses it to manipulate Sheba.
The joy of Heller’s book is Barbara. Her narrative voice is creepy and controlling, a spinster with other things on her mind besides Countdown and cats. She slowly manipulates Sheba, winding her into her spider’s web.
But it’s only towards the end of the book that we discover the true extent of Barbara’s malice and repressed sexuality.
From the start, the film sets up Barbara as a villain, a Machiavellian creature motivated primarily by sexual desires — she might as well have a big yellow post-it note on her forehead saying “I am an evil lesbian witch”. Dench does a great job making her sinister and rotten but there’s no room for increased malevolence or character exploration: she shows all her cards at the beginning.
Sheba is not the only object of Barbara’s affections. A former “conquest” took a restraining order out on her and the film ends with Dench on a park bench, attempting to pick up her next victim.
The finer points of Barbara’s character are dissolved in a puddle of toxic poison. Loneliness, grief at the loss of her cat, sharp intelligence, all lose distinction when delivered by a big preying mantis.
There are other problems with the screenplay too. The affair, which constitutes such an important part of the story, is discovered when Barbara sees them getting up to no good in the art room. The build up is unsatisfactorily revealed in flashback. Why not show it as it happens?
The relationship between Sheba and the young pupil is convincing, as is her marriage to her older husband (Bill Nighy, great fun as always). Dench is impressive in the restricted role and Blanchett is fine as the bland Sheba.
But the director, Richard Eyre, tries too hard to make Barbara into a predator, the next big villain.
