Synopsis

Two women are caught up in a drama of need and betrayal. The twists and turns of their story are noted in the acerbic diary of Barbara Covett, a domineering and solitary teacher who rules with an iron fist over her classroom at a decaying state-run high school in London. Save for her cat, Portia, Barbara lives alone, without friends or confidantes, but her world changes when she meets the school’s new art teacher, Sheba Hart. Sheba appears to be the kindred spirit and loyal friend Barbara has always been seeking. When she discovers that Sheba is having an affair with one of her young students, their budding relationship takes an ominous turn. Now, as Barbara threatens to expose Sheba's terrible secret to both her husband and the world, Barbara’s own secrets and dark obsessions come tumbling to the fore, exposing the deceptions at the core of each of the women’s lives.

What The Critics Say

"Judi Dench, as Barbara, is both pathetic and scary as she puts in motion her scheme to ruin Sheba’s life and drive the younger woman to her for solace and support. Dench gives her character real dimension and you, almost, feel bad for her. Almost. is a fascinating psychological drama and study of a human monster that should do well with mature audiences." Robin Clifford REELING REVIEWS "What makes this movie work are the powerhouse performances by Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett; they will blow you away." Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone THEMOVIECHICKS "A multi-obsessional treasury for Blanchett and Dench to plunder with crackling creative joy." Jules Brenner CINEMA SIGNALS "It's a thrill to see powerhouse actresses lock horns in an emotional battle royal, and Notes on a Scandal gives us two of England's finest in pitched combat." Colin Covert MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE "A wonderfully acted, wickedly funny and provocative film that contains an intriguing and perceptive glimpse at loneliness." Paul Doro MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL "Dench stars as (the not exactly subtly named) Barbara Covett, a hilariously mordant battle ax whiling away her days until retirement in a run-down London school stuffed with riff-raff and ruffians. At a swift 92 minutes, 'NOTES' has hardly a wasted frame. Eyre calls on the invaluable, sad-eyed character actor Bill Nighy to put a human face on the suffering and embarrassment that follows in this scandal's aftermath. He's so good you'll almost feel guilty for having so much catty fun with such sheer, unbridled misery. Almost." Sean Burns PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY

"This is the kind of film so joyful you can imagine watching it again and again. Anytime you come away from such ultimately dark subject matter suffused with happy appreciation, you know you've stumbled on something special." Phoebe Flowers SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL "It's a grand thing to watch these two Academy Award winners, who easily could be back in Oscar contention with this film, have at each other." David Germain ASSOCIATED PRESS "Take a note: This is Judi Dench in the performance ofher career as a needy teacher who exploits and almostdestroys a younger woman." Oscar voters, take note: Notes on a Scandal contains two of the best female performances of 2006. Thomas Delapa BOULDER WEEKLY Harvey S Karten COMPUSERVE "Judi Dench delivers a wickedly scintillating performance in Notes on a Scandal, a deliciously dark morality tale about breaking taboos." John Larsen LIGHT VIEWS "When Blanchett and Dench reach their dramatic zeniths, watching them share the frame is like watching two ferocious lions hissing and roaring at each other. Blanchett is strong as always, and Bill Nighy - who plays Sheba's husband - is great in a small role. 4 STARS." Luke Buckmaster INFILM

The Inside Story By now, most avid film fans will have had a chance to see all five women who have been nominated in the catagory for Best Actress at this years prestigious Academy Awards. Let me just refresh your minds as to who is in the running for this years award. There's Helen Mirren, "The Queen; Meryl Streep, "The Devil Wears Prada"; Judi Dench, "Notes On A Scandal"; Kate Winslett, "Little Children", and Penelope Cruz, "Volver". For many cinemagoers, Helen Mirren in her role as Queen Elizabeth II has been the front runner by a long way. But having now seen all the nominees, I for one am not convinced that Mirren is a hands down winner. Why? Because having now witnessed the phenomenal performance of Dame Judith Dench in "Notes On A Scandal", I think the Academy members are going to have a hard time choosing this years recipient for cinemas most covetted prize, Oscar. Dench, who plays an aging, lonely schoolteacher named Barbara Covett has shortened the odds in what has been a one horse race. Barbara is a wonderful character who certainly has a way with words. Her narrative, is an interesting aspect of the film. She is a troubled, dangerous woman, whose emotional attraction to Sheba is not something new. Barbara it seems has a history of trying to attach herself to women teachers. The dark spectre of loneliness looms large over her and as she heads towards retirement, her opinion of much of what is happening around her becomes more caustic. "People like Sheba think they know what it is to be lonely. But of the drip-drip of the long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing." In Sheba Hart she sees respite, indeed a sanctuary of blissful companionship. Sheba sees her as just a friend, a fellow teacher who has shown a kindly interest in a newcomer to the school. The worm turns when Barbara accidently witnesses Sheba performing oral sex on fifteen year old student, Steven Connolly. Now she has a lever. Sheba can trust her with her little secret, or can she? The sheer audacity, the naïvety of Barbara's preposterous assumptions, are revealed in an emotionally charged tour de force performance that will grip audiences. "Notes On A Scandal" is an adaptation of the 2001 novel "What Was She Thinking: Notes On a Scandal" by author Zoë Heller. The film rights were quickly snapped up by leading producers Scott Rudin ("Changing Lanes" and "The Hours") and Robert Fox ("Iris" and "Closer"), who then contracted leading playwright and screenwriter Patrick Marber to tackle the adaptation. They then approached noted theatre and film director Richard Eyre was approached by Rudin and Fox about directing the film version. Eyre has come a long way since making his directorial debuted in 1983 with the film "Loose Connections", which by the way starred Stephen Rea and one Anthony Robert McMillan, better known as Robbie Coltrane. As director of The Royal National Theatre, Eyre has produced over one hundred productions, and directed twenty seven plays including: "Guys and Dolls" (Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics Circle Awards for Best Director); "Richard III" with Ian McKellen; Tom Stoppard's "The Invention Of Love" (Evening Standard Award); "King Lear" with Ian Holm (Evening Standard, Olivier and Critics Circle Awards) which he also directed for BBC TV and WGBH (Peabody Award) and, David Hare's "Amy’s View" with Dame Judi Dench. The acclaimed director had already read Heller's novel finding it at once funny, touching and beautifully observed. It's material was precisely the kind that intrigues him. "I saw it as a story of friendships and sexual intoxications. It's really a tale of two obsessions, of two women in the grip of their own self-destructive, uncontrollable passions," he said. They say it's all about timing, and for Eyre, it was the right time for him to return to directing film. "I’d just done the two extremes of the spectrum in theatre," he notes, "so to get back to filmmaking with a project with the fantastic credentials of "Notes On A Scandal" was irresistible." Adapting Heller's work for the bigscreen would not be an easy task. "I did find writing this screenplay very difficult," admits UK Writer’s Guild Award winner Marber, "but I was greatly helped by Scott Rudin, who pushed me through every draft. The novel is so rich and expansive that the job was to find a way to somehow compact all this into the story." And the character of Barbara Covett? "I was very faithful to what Zoë had written about Barbara," Marber says. "The thing that’s really different in the novel is that Barbara is telling the story from her point of view, so my job was to try to bring a more objective ballast to who she is, but at the same time keep her persona as this prickly, funny, at times stoic, figure. She's no-nonsense, but she’s also got this aching, beating, vulnerable heart, and is someone who has never known love. Everything she does is out of a desperate loneliness and yet, at the same time, she’s a monster. I've always been attracted to characters who you love and despise simultaneously, and Barbara inspires both reactions." But when it came to Sheba Hart, you did make some small changes? "I gave Sheba a slightly more offbeat, bohemian background than she has in the book," he revealed, "but her vulnerabilities and complicated feelings remain the same." There's no doubt that everything hinged on finding the right actress to play Barbara. The filmmakers knew early on they would need one of the finest actresses working in film today. Rudin already had someone in mind. Producer Scott Rudin understood there was no other actress alive today that could pull off this role with the determination and resolve that the character demanded. He knew it had to be Oscar ® winner and 1965 BAFTA Most Promising Newcomer, Dame Judi Dench. And what was her reaction when she read Marber's script? "It’s a really shocking story," says Dench. "But the challenge of doing it was very exciting to me. It was thrilling to be asked to do something that couldn’t be more different from anything I’ve ever played before." On Marber's adaptation she said, "I thought it was very skillfully adapted. It's quite faithful to Zoë Heller's style while still being very individual to Patrick." And what was Heller's reaction to the casting of Dench? "In casting Judi Dench, one knows she will bring an intelligence and vulnerability to the role," she said. Working on the project provided a number of opportunities for Dench. One was working with internationally acclaimed Australian actress, Cate Blanchett. "It was very intense and very, very hard work but we had a lot of laughs and she was terrific," says Dench. "She is a phenomenal actress and she was phenomenal to work with. I think she is just fantastic, imaginative and quite inspirational." Marber agrees. "When I was writing the screenplay, I became even more certain that she had to play Sheba. I know Cate socially and we're pals, but I've never worked with her before. And I couldn’t be more thrilled with her performance. I think she’s really raw in a way that I think will shock people." Heller agrres. "Cate is as damn near an incarnation of what I had in my head as you could get," she says. "So it was like having a dream and then seeing it acted out before you." For Dench "Notes On A Scandal provided an opportunity to re-unite with director Richard Eyre. "He has such wonderful instincts," she remarked. "You feel very secure in his company because he knows what he wants but, within that parameter, he also allows you to really breathe and that’s very exciting." As for the morals of Barbara and Sheba, Dench (who was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1970, and in 1998 became a Dame of the British Empire) says, "I think it's very much left to the audience to make up its own mind on the ethics of it all." And what does director Eyre hope audiences will get out of the film? "I really hope people find this film funny, as well as occasionally frightening, shocking and sad," he said. "There is something at once comical, ghastly and terribly human about this delusion that Barbara has that she will have a passionate, lifelong friendship with Sheba. And Barbara’s feelings for Sheba are analogous to Sheba’s feelings for Steven, the schoolboy. These two women are not in control, any more than any of us are in control when it comes to love." The Verdict "Without a doubt, who ever wins the Oscar for Best Actress this year will certainly deserve it. In fact all the nominees deserve to win it and it's a pity they just can't give each and every one of these tatelented ladies the covetted statue. Judi Dench stakes her claim for an Oscar with this magnificent performance as the sardonic, vitriolic, near retirement school teacher Barbara Covett who's life keeps running aground due to her feelings for other women staff members. It's a role that Dench plays to the hilt and a performance that will have cinemagoers buzzing. It's delicious listening to Barabara's harsh assessment of her fellow teachers, students, the decaying education system and of course, discussing her feelings for the popular newbie Sheba, played exceptionally well by Cate Blanchett. While these two actress go at it 'tooth and nail', the support cast chip in with some polished performances including those of Bill Nighy as Sheba's husband Richard and new comer Andrew Simpson as the besotted schoolboy, Steven. Everything about "Notes On A Scandal" sreams class. Excellent 'adult' entertainment. 4 1/2 STARS." Cast & Crew Bytes "NOTES ON A SCANDAL" stars .......
1999 Tony Award winner Dame Judi Dench ["Chocolat", "Ladies In Lavendar", "Mrs Henderson Presents" and "Casino Royale"]; Oscar, BAFTA and SAG Award™ winner Cate Blanchett ["Oscar and Lucinda", "Veronica Guerin", "The Aviator" and "Babel"]; Andrew Simpson ["Song For A Raggy Boy"]; Shaun Parkes ["Human Traffic", "The Mummy Returns" and "Things to Do Before You're 30"], Wendy Nottingham ["Secrets & Lies", "Dead on Time", "Topsy-Turvy", "Vera Drake" and "Babel"] and BAFTA Award winner Bill Nighy ["Underworld Evolution I & II", "Shaun Of The Dead", "Love Actually" and ""] as Richard.
"NOTES ON A SCANDAL" was .......
directed by Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics Circle Award Best Director winner Richard Eyre ["The Ploughman's Lunch", "Singleton's Pluck ", "Iris" and "Stage Beauty"]; screenplay by Writer's Guild Best West End Play Award winner Patrick Marber ["Closer" and "Asylum"]; director of photography Two Time Academy Award winner Chris Menges ["The Mission" and "The Killing Fields"]; original music by ["The Hours", "Secret Window" and "Taking Lives"]; edited by Academy Award winner John Bloom ["Gandhi", "Air America", "The First Wives Club" and "Closer"] and Antonia Van Drimmelen ["Thelma & Louise", "Shaft", "The First Wives Club" and "Closer"] production design by Tim Hatley ["Closer"]; costume design by Tim Hatley ["Stage Beauty"]. Run Time 92 minutes Rated MA15+ [AUST] Copyright ©2007 - Fox Searchlight Pictures - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2007 - Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved