Notes on a Scandal

The real subject is not the affair at the school but the person who knows about it. Barbara has taught at the same school for years, has been close to nobody, and writes everything down in a diary. When she discovers that Sheba, the new art teacher, is sleeping with a fifteen-year-old pupil, she does not report it. She keeps it. From there the film becomes a story about loneliness and leverage. It comes from Zoë Heller's novel, adapted by Patrick Marber and directed by Richard Eyre. Philip Glass's score is its most argued-over element: constant, insistent, pressing at nearly every scene as though a far larger threat were present than actually is. Some find it overbearing; others say the film's tension is entirely built out of it. Judi Dench plays Barbara and Cate Blanchett plays Sheba, and both were nominated for Oscars. Who it is for: viewers who like two performers slowly cornering each other, in a drama that leaves nobody morally sheltered. Who it is not for: anyone hoping for sympathy toward Barbara's isolation. The film frames her as a predator rather than a casualty, and that choice is contestable.