Notes on a Scandal

Notes on a Scandal is a film about a teacher's affair with a student. No, it is not the Mary Kay Laterno story. I wasn't even watching Lifetime. This movie was a 2006 Academy Award-nominated film! I guess since they have British accents they are more snotty and respectable.

Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) is a spinster that teaches history in a school in England. Barbara's only relationship is her diary which she religiously completes every night. She is not well liked at school by both students and the other teachers but is so desperate for friends.

The start of the new school year brings a new art teacher, Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett). She is rather innocent and very overwhelmed by her responsibilities of handling her teenage students. There is a case in which two males students are wrestling around in her classroom like it is WWE Raw. Barbara intervenes and Sheba is grateful and they begin their friendship.

Barbara learns that Sheba is married to a much older man and two children, a boy with Down's Syndrome, and a girl. Sheba constantly mentions to Barbara about how unhappy she is with her life and it is not what Sheba planned for her future.

One evening at a school function Barbara goes looking for a missing Sheba and finds Sheba with her top off with 15-year-old Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson). Barbara confronts Sheba and Sheba explains the affair began in after-school sessions and when she learned that his father is abusive and that his mother is dying from kidney failure. Well Barbara being creepy as she is decides this is what she needs to cement this relationship with Sheba. She becomes more possesive and weird.

Throughout the movie Barbara becomes very sociopathic, resorting to blackmail on several occasions. I think she may have fallen in love with Sheba but the movie never comes right out and say if Barbara's character is a lesbian. I tell ya what that Judi Dench is one heck of an actress. The movie itself was very intense and saucy. I give this movie a 7 out of 10.