Notes on a Scandal | 
| Director: Richard Eyre
Actors: Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Tom Georgeson, Michael Maloney, Joanna Scanlan
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy Used: $0.66
You Save: $19.32 (97%)
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Rating:  171 reviews
Sales Rank: 10378
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 92 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 2243891
UPC: 024543438915
EAN: 0024543438915
ASIN: B000NIVJFY
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
Release Date: April 17, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Academy AwardJ winners Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett give wickedly entertaining Oscar-nominated performances - one as a woman consumed by her colleague's guilty secret the other a victim to her own dark obsessions - in this sexy stylish thriller. Dench mesmerizes as Barbara Covett a teacher who rules over her classroom with an iron fist yet leads a desperate solitary life outside it. That is until she meets radiant new art teacher Sheba Hart (Blanchett). Although at first overjoyed with her newfound kindred spirit when Barbara discovers that Sheba is having an affair with a teenage student her jealously and rage spiral out of control.System Requirements:Runtime: 121 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 024543438915 Manufacturer No: 2243891
Amazon.com
Gold stars to all for this taut psychological thriller based on Zoe Heller's novel that that gets more insidiously twisted as it unfolds. Oscar-nominated for her chilling performance, Dame Judi Dench gives a master class as schoolteacher Barbara Covett, a frumpy, friendless, and flinty spinster who lives with her cat. A formidable presence, Barbara is standoffish with colleagues and not one for students to trifle with (not that they'd dare). Cate Blanchett, also an Oscar nominee and winner of several critics society awards for her impassioned performance, costars as Sheba Hart, the new, overwhelmed art teacher who first becomes enthrall to Barbara after she steps in to help Sheba discipline unruly students. Barbara cultivates a friendship, and insinuates herself into Sheba's chaotic life, which includes her older husband (Bill Nighy), teenage daughter, and a son with Down's syndrome. Then, Barbara catches the reckless Sheba in a compromising position with a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson). Seizing her opportunity, the calculating Barbara does not turn her in. Rather, she wants to "help" her. "She's the one I've been waiting for," she writes in the journals she meticulously keeps, and which provide, in voiceover, her corrosive commentary. This all sounds very Fatal Attraction, but no boiling rabbits, please; we're British. Philip Glass's Oscar-nominated score accentuates the growing menace. Though there is little in these characters to admire, (one would think GLAAD would have something to say about the predatory turn Barbara's character takes), Notes on a Scandal is a compelling tour-de-force for its Grade-A cast. --Donald Liebenson Notes on a Scandal Extras 
Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench on their characters in the film |
Beyond Notes on a Scandal 
Book to Movie Adaptations | 
More Cate Blanchett Films | 
What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal: A Novel |
Stills from Notes on a Scandal
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| Customer Reviews: Read 166 more reviews...
 "WE'RE NOT LIKE THAAAT!!!!" SAID MY AUNTS. June 21, 2009
Margaret Opine
They watched NOTES ON A SCANDAL at the movies and freaked out! The performances were so well done my aunts were pulled into it. They're in their 60s and 70s. They sat in the theater afterwards and tried to analyze the movie and find its faults. They were sure the faults were there but they were dumbfounded. Judi Dench as Barbara looked and behaved like the epitome of what every older woman does not want to be. My aunts rented the video and started a club talking about NOTES ON A SCANDAL specifically Judi Dench's performance. Then they found the "special features" on the video and started in on that based on what the director and actors had to say. They said and I quote, "Just because an older woman sits on a bench at one of the highest points in the city, no less, does not mean she is sad and lonely. She may be sitting there taking a rest, recuperating and milling over her three dead husbands, six children (and grands), missed child-support checks, lost loves and lost youth and arthritis. She may have lots of ghosts sitting there beside her from the past talking and laughing about old times. She is not lonely and she is not looking for another affair or relationship. I just hate it when people stereotype older women assuming they have to have a man or some children constantly around them or they are assumed to be lonely. If a woman has done all that well-enough she is not looking to do it again. She is not lonely."
They were going on and on about NOTES for a while. Then one of the grandchildren said, "The character was a old spinster. If she had ghosts sitting with her they would have been students." Everybody laughed. That was it. My aunts felt super-good after that. They felt they had given to their large families and many loves so they had a right to be tired but never lonely. There is too much in their memory banks for that. And, one of the aunts added,"I never thought that the high variety I've had in my life, you know--the stuff some people call promiscuity...would ever come to good use in my life but it has. I am not Barbara, thank the Lord." That character really threw them for a loop.
Then they got on the issue of sex, lesbianism and loneliness. They liked this movie and will likely look at it again and again over the years. Judi got them good. They can't get over it. They each said they have felt lonely lying next to the man they loved. They've felt lonely holding their own child. They said loneliness will visit at anytime including when one is alone. And, they said it is definitely a good life skill to learn how to enjoy one's self with one's self, all by one's self. It is good to learn how to have a good time no matter what.
That left lesbianism. My aunts are not against gays but they think even gay people would agree that they don't like the stereotype that when one is alone one is desperate and obsessive.
My aunts concluded that the script was missing something. The script didn't tell us about Barbara's past. Was she a gay lover when she was young? Had she ever had a gay life or was she simply looking for a young woman to be her friend or was she trying to replace her cat or was she trying to do some mothering. (Mothers can be obsessive too you know.) Or, she could have been off-the-track and obsessive.
Both my aunts like to journal. That freaked them out too. (smile) They've talked about publishing their secrets but they probably won't.
NOTES...GOES DEEP. ITIS GRIPPING.
--Margaret O
Dark, bold and overwhelming! May 24, 2009
Ankur Mukherjee
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This has to be one of the most bold and amazing piece of cinema. Rarely you get to see films that have your eyes glued at the screen. Judi Dench, she did shock and scare me both, she is at her very best in this film. Cate does an excellent work as well, she was amazing. The film, may seem to go slow initially but soon catches a rapid pace. Fine and flamboyant acting makes the film worth a watch.
A gold star film May 4, 2009
Accent Marketing Group (Cheyenne, WY)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was not an easy movie to watch due to the subject matter, but the 2 actors featured give the most amazing performances.
Judi Dench is awesome in whatever she does, but the cunning manipulative spinster is taken to a whole new chilling level here.
Cate Blanchett likewise has a great talent, and here, she seems quiet, 'deer in the headlights', as Dench's character thinks, until she decides to fight back for what she wants.
Very clever and subtle throughout, with everything contributing to the shocking conclusion. The dead cat and trowel scene was something straight out of Hitchcock, with not quite so horrifying results, but still a very chilling film about the nature of [sexual] obsession/s.
Melodramatic Grace April 22, 2009
Joshua B. Anderson (Rock Hill, SC)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Notes on a Scandal was one film that I never thought would intrique me. It was suggested to me by a friend whose advice on film I respect so I picked up the film. I continue to respect that friend's film advice.
Never has a movie made me feel gritty, dirty, happy, angry, bitter, and more in a matter of five minutes. The story being told is one of the humans need to do whatever possible to obtain their utmost desire. We have Judi Dench as the nearly-retired school teacher whose obsession with younger teachers brings her into Cate Blanchett's character's new lease on life as she begins teaching again after caring for a family for years. Fortunate for Dench's obsession, Blanchett's character has a secret that will keep her in the hands of Dench's pitiful game.
The film's pace is very steady for a drama. We're also given subtly quirky side characters to please our front runners. And as for the front runners? Judi Dench captivated me with her performance. Most of the feelings I mentioned up top sprung from her decisions with her character, Barbara. She was obviously the antagonist, but in ways, I wanted to view her as the protagonist. And Blanchett's Sheba was portrayed with just the right amount of humanity. Should I despise her for what she is doing to everyone around her, or feel sorry for her because she just falls deeper into a portal of never returning?
Notes on a Scandal is definitely a tale of morality and trust, and for me, it hit every moment of that for me.
Excellent performances all round April 21, 2009
HerStory Books (New York, NY)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Really top class acting by all concerned. Judi Dench has it to a tea, the buttoned up school mistress, down to the way she smokes her cigarettes and deals with the death of her cat. A stellar performance.
Cate Blanchett doesn't get as much screen time, obviously, but when she does, all eyes are on her. She does an excellent job of the sensitive issue with her relationship with the young man-great acting job by Andrew Simpson.
Bill Nighy as the wronged husband is pitch-perfect.
A very serious subject, dark and repressed, if not depressed, but it ends on a high note with all having learned their lesson, except the sinister 'vampire' Judi Dench.
A gripping movie you should watch at least twice to get the full picture of every nuance.
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