Richard Eyre: Notes on a Scandal (2006)

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/839/93iu.jpg
JUDY DENCH AND CATE BLANCHETT IN NOTES ON A SCANDAL

Richard Eyre: Notes on a Scandal (2006)

Much ado

Review by Chris Knipp

Why does this story of pinched desire and mindless indiscretion, for all its color and life, feel glib and superficial? Perhaps it’s disadvantaged by being a celebrity project, with two overexposed superstars, Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, both playing characters who are heavily programmed. I don’t personally trust Patrick Marber, who worked on the screenplay adaptation from Zoe Heller's novel. His play-to-film adaptation Closer felt similarly cold and manipulative. The difference here is an even higher level of melodrama. And then it’s the main characters: one is repulsive, the other shallow.

Dench plays Barbara, a needy, lonely lesbian teacher whom even this famous, powerful actress couldn’t make us sympathize with for a minute were it not for the device of having her be the narrator. Like the main character of Patricia Highsmith’s novel, Edith’s Diary, Barbara describes events as she would like them to be rather than as they are.

Barbara’s new obsession (not the first, we learn) is the pursuit of a relationship with an attractive young woman newly arrived on the scene, a project that becomes momentarily plausible through a chance opportunity at blackmail. Barbara and Sheba (Blanchett) are both teachers at a school where Barbara is an old hand and Sheba a newcomer. Sheba is a pretty, directionless ex-bohemian unwisely taking a stab at teaching art. She’s seemingly unaware of how bored she is with her marriage, but that’s why she’s trying her hand in the classroom. The full extent of her foolishness and desperation comes out when she quite quickly gets involved in a sexual affair with one of her students, a fifteen-year-old Irish boy named Stephen Connolly (Andrew Simpson). As Sheba’s enraged husband Richard (Bill Nighy) later points out, this is something everybody is tempted by at some point, but always resists. If we can manage not to see her as criminal, which legally she is, we certainly must see Sheba as criminally stupid. It's hard to say whether the movie's focus on these two women feels more condescending toward us or toward the characters.

There are two lines of action. Stephen pursues Sheba with surprising success. He persuades her to give him special drawing lessons and arouses her sympathy by lying about his family and saying his father beats him and his mother is seriously ill. He turns out to come from a happy, healthy home, such a nice one you wonder why his English is so bad. A few nice words (“You don’t realize how beautiful you are, Miss”) and forward gestures, and he’s there. He and Sheba have hot sessions on the ground by a train track, in a storage room at the school during a school event, and later in what Richard calls her “lair,” a studio next to her home that she has admitted is just a place to escape to.

Barbara is delighted to spy the connection at school and immediately realizes this is the opportunity to forge an unbreakable bond with her love object – by promising to say nothing, and then becoming the central person in Sheba’s life. This is not so far fetched, since Sheba liked her at first, and of course she has to be nice to Barbara now. Barbara proceeds to imagine a wonderful relationship growing out of this nastiness.

Unfortunately Barbara demands that Sheba come to comfort her on the death of her cat at the precise moment when the family is off to see their son perform for the first time in a school play, and Sheba has to say no. She promises to end the affair with the boy but doesn't, and Barbara catches Stephen talking dirty to Sheba on her mobile phone. Too bad for Sheba. Revenge follows.

Richard screams at Sheba when he finds out, and demands to know why she got into such a thing. Her most heartfelt reply is an emphatic if vapid, "I don’t know!" "The opera has begun," Barbara says, and the yelling and emotional excess do suggest arias from some telenovela-style musical drama.

The film is well paced and lively and good-looking. But the acting skills of Blanchett are Dench are largely wasted here. It’s only the yelling and running around, which director Eyre would have done well to put a rein on, that linger in the mind when it’s all over. Chris Menges makes the photography look attractive, but the ladies become pretty disheveled before the squabbling is over, Sheba is in on her way to jail, Barbara has been forced into early retirement, and we are left wondering what it was all about. Director Eyre (of Iris, in which Dench unquestionably shone, and Stage Beauty, which quickly faded) seems a bit overpowered this time by his luminous cast and inexplicably celebrated adapter. This movie is inevitably watchable, but we shouldn't be fooled into thinking it significant.

[mouton]

I feel like such a sap. I fell for this movie and enjoyed everything you criticized about it. What you said makes a lot of sense. Sheba does give into Steven far too easily. Barbara is repulsive. It is more dramatic than necessary (thanks in part to the Philip Glass score). That being said, I enjoyed Marber's turn of phrase (and CLOSER for that matter). I believed it to be a solid script that should be praised at the least for its levels of ageism and sexuality. But I do agree with you regarding its significance. When I was talking the movie up, I realized it really serves no purpose other than being dramatic. It is merely a crazy stalker flick when it could have been a much deeper character piece, especially considering the acting talent.

I still think it was a strong film ... just unfortunately disposable.

[Chris Knipp]

That may be right. It is a beautifullly filmed movie with major actresses--and the excellent Bill Nighy, who I just saw in David Hare's new play, The Vertical Hour. How bad could it be? It's fun. I think I am somewhat at fault in judging the two women--David Denby refers to that as a mistake some reviewers have been making. I'm not sure how much that should influence one's judgment of the film. You can have a good film about bad or even criinally dumb people.

Anyway you are not alone in having liked it a lot. The lastest is David Denby in the current New Yorker magazine reveiw.
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/articles/070115crci_cinema. As I've said, I think the New Yorker revierws are so well written you have to pay attention to them. They usually contain some good observations, even if the orientation is a bit too conventional, especially in the case of Denby. Denby likes Notes on a Scandal better than Eastwood's Iwo Jima films. That's crazy I think. But he has--as usual-- some good observations. Anyway, I think Notes is not one that will survive far into the future.

[oscar jubis]

Riveting drama adapted by Patrick Marber from Zoe Heller's novel "What Was She Thinking: Notes on a Scandal" and directed by Richard Eyre (Iris). 37 year-old Sheba (short for Bathsheba, not coincidentally) decides to teach art after toiling esclusively as a wife to Richard and mom to a teenage daughter and Down syndrome son. As she befriends Barbara, a spinster close to retirement, she secretly enters into a sexual relationship with 15 year-old Steven. Barbara finds out then vows not to tell if Sheba breaks it up. Heller's book consists exclusively of Barbara's diary entries; several of them constitute the film's voice-over narration. They convey how Barbara relishes her new-found power over Sheba and a bond based on shared secrets.

Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench are phenomenal as the protagonists. Both have been rewarded with nominations for acting awards both in the States and in Britain. Actually, the whole cast is very good, including Bill Nighy as Richard, and young Andrew Simpson as Steven. The music score by Philip Glass enhances the mood without being intrusive. Marber's script is a marvel of precision and economy, expanding a book written from a single vantage point into something richer and more ambigious. The script received nominations for the Golden Globes and British Academy awards.

(spoilers)
Notes on a Scandal is pointedly focused on love/lust for someone significantly younger. Sheba herself is the love object of three people who are at least 20 years older than her: her husband, Tom_a math teacher who loves her covertly and becomes a tool of revenge and, as it becomes increasingly evident, Barbara. As a matter of fact, during the final act, we learn that Barbara's love life consists of a series of intense, carefully plotted, and manipulative relationships with much younger women. Notes on a Scandal never becomes schematic or didactic, it merely hints at and suggests grander themes and wise insights.The rich dramatic material, precision-honed to a brief 91 minutes, allows for a relatively wide range of readings regarding the personality and motivation of characters. For me, a key scene has Sheba and Barbara discussing the gap between the life we thought we'd have and the life we end up having. The deplorable and inappropriate behaviors of these women are misguided attempts to fill that gap.There's also material that points towards Freudian notions of both women being fixated at earlier stages of development. Barbara's diary reveals certain hyperromantic notions typical of pubescent girls; Sheba escapes into a room she calls her "lair", where she keeps mementos 0f 80s juvenilia (she proudly reveals to Steven that her favorite band was Siouxsie and the Banshees, which says a lot about Sheba that Peter and most filmgoers won't get). Months later, after the affair becomes the titular scandal, she hides in her lair and puts on heavy eye makeup like Siouxsie back in the day. There are also mentions of both women having less than ideal family environment during their formative years. None of this is laid too thick; it never becomes reductive. The actions of Barbara and Sheba, which most will find deplorable, are neatly balanced by their loneliness and need to connect and find meaning in their lives. It's fascinating how Barbara's narration reveals a highly observant woman who's very knowing and insightful about others but displays a lack of personal awareness.

[Chris Knipp]

It's a good average English film (the Metacritic rating is 73), a glittering, well-acted and edited, nice-looking, seductive piece of work, but I don't think over time it's going to prove a long-celebrated one, nor is it as brilliant as it may appear from your description. The reality of it is much less appealing. Are you saying it's one of the best of the year ("Riveting drama," "hints at and suggests grander themes and wise insights.The rich dramatic material, precision-honed...")?

Many reviews have commented unfavorably on the Philip Glass score, calling it obtrusive, which you explicitly deny. As I said, the director, whose previous film directing efforts (he's mostly a stage director in England) have been mixed, ought to have toned down the hysteria level toward the end, but the filmmakers seemed bent on winding things up to a fever pitch and turning it into "opera," a word Barbara uses. (Incidentally isn't it Nighy's character who uses the word "lair" rather than Sheba?)

Your description (whether intentionally or not) seems to downplay the misbehavior of the two women, viz (note your use of "we," suggesting everyone shares Sheba's "issues" and so might share their behavior):
For me, a key scene has Sheba and Barbara discussing the gap between the life we thought we'd have and the life we end up having. The deplorable and inappropriate behaviors of these women are misguided attempts to fill that gap. "Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardoner" [to understand all is to forgive all]--to quote a quote from The History Boys--is this what you imply? Note your gradual softening of adjectives in the progression from "deplorable" (still weaker than "despicable") to "inappropriate" --suggesting bad manners rather than vicious or criminal action -- to "misguided" -- meaning just a little bit in the wrong direction. This may not be your intention, but it's how it sounds.

I contrarily may be criticized for seeming to damn the film for the despicable nature of all three main characters, the two women and the boy--in fact Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal wrote that, "Taken at face value, are simply despicable." After all, great art can make anybody worthy of attention. The trouble is, however, Notes on a Scandal's transgressors aren't made thus worthy. They lack dimension and are without redeeming features other than energy and looks (this is like Marber's version of Closer, which also gave us people without redeeming features--or much depth). Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer: "What it lacks, though, is any sense that these people - are real." Barbara's skill in the classroom seems to be merely in maintaining discipline. Sheba has grown bored with her marriage--why? From what we're shown, she's got a charming, lively family. What's her excuse for such a shockingly misjudged act of infidelity? Lack of "self-realization"? Not like the clearcut motivations of Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) and Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) in Todd Field's in my view far superior Little Children, who are both in obviously bad marriages, and are appropriate for each other. This is wha I meant when I said in my review the two women are programmed -- they're programmed rather than motivated, and they're humor-dominated figures rather than rounded three-dimensional characters.

Here's Robert Wilonsky of the Voice:
[b]Heller forced her readers to like Barbara—or at least tolerate her—because she was our guide through the story. But Marber's Barbara is not to be trusted, not to be liked for a single second. We see her as she really is: vengeful, vile, crazy. Still, everyone's a predator in this tale. Sheba feels "entitled" to fuck around with a 15-year-old. Barbara finds a way to one-up Sheba, emotionally blackmailing her until all of them—Sheba, Barbara, even Steven, that little liar—end up a sordid lot deserving of their fates. Just where Marber wants them. Noting that conclusion by Wilonsky, one can wonder, Should we, can we, care about them, then? I don't see very much sense of these issues in your description, and so I come out feeling your understanding and sympathy for the women (perhaps for the boy too? is he just doing what boys do?) goes beyond what the movie wants from us. And this is the trouble with Marber. He slashes and burns his material and leaves us with characters who are threadbare and cardboard. Then he gives us a lot of flashy dramatic action to cover that up.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Are you saying it's one of the best of the year ("Riveting drama," "hints at and suggests grander themes and wise insights.The rich dramatic material, precision-honed...")?
I watched it last night and I've thought about it enough to write my review, but I have yet to place its accomplishments alongside those of other films I liked. I will eventually have to compare it to other favorites of mine released in 2006. It's beginning to look like my favorite ten English-language films of 2006 won't measure up to similar lists from previous years. Looks like a year with a very high number of very good movies and very few great ones. All I can tell you right now is that in my opinion Notes... is very good, and worthy of a second look.

the director ought to have toned down the hysteria level toward the end, but the filmmakers seemed bent on winding things up to a fever pitch and turning it into "opera,"
Glad to see you specify that what you earlier called "the yelling and running around" occurs "towards the end". The drama does build up to a fever pitch as you say, but the ascent is gradual and every such scene is congruent with the psychology of the characters. These are, after all, intense people in dire circumstances. I'll grant you that there are two scenes that are perhaps extraneous: Steven's mother assaulting Sheba, and Sheba's very public breakdown while clutching Barbara's diary in her hands. Perhaps you prefer the approach taken by Lucrecia Martel in her wonderful film The Holy Girl. It ends when a public scandal involving a middle-age doctor and a teenage girl is inevitable but before it actually does.

Incidentally isn't it Nighy's character who uses the word "lair" rather than Sheba?
Richard uses the word to explain that Sheba calls that room "her lair".

Your description (whether intentionally or not) seems to downplay the misbehavior of the two women, viz (note your use of "we," suggesting everyone shares Sheba's "issues" and so might share their behavior)
I hate the use of the Imperial "we" when describing how the audience feels about or interprets a scene or film. My sole use of "we" is to refer to what "we learn" about Barbara as a matter of narrative exposition.


Note your gradual softening of adjectives in the progression from "deplorable" (still weaker than "despicable") to "inappropriate" --suggesting bad manners rather than vicious or criminal action -- to "misguided" -- meaning just a little bit in the wrong direction. This may not be your intention, but it's how it sounds.
I use several negative adjectives to refer to the women's behavior. The last of these I use is "deplorable" (four lines from the end going up). I'm clearly not condoning what they do. But life is hard and human beings do bad things, for a lot of reasons. I found that Notes on a Scandal makes it very easy to feel empathy and compassion for these characters. To regard them also with interest and curiosity. In my practice, I've been put in a position to approach with unconditional positive regard folks who've done much worse. Inside every "despicable" adult, there's a wounded child. Notes on a Scandal grants access to that damaged part inside Barbara and Sheba, and I appreciate Eyre, Heller and Marber for the opportunity.

[Chris Knipp]

Of course your adjectives are all three negative, but you are overlooking my point about their gradual softening in your sentence's progression: deplorable--inappropriate--misguided . Would I say illegal-despicable-misguided? No, I wouldn't. These things matter. It's a bit odd -- or redundant, rather -- to refer to something outright illegal on Sheba's part as "deplorable." No need to say something illegal is "deplorable." Society does not prevent or punish everything it deplores. Furthermore, I think there's a difference between what you view with professional sympathy in your work in the way of behavior, and behavior presented in a social comedy. But we cannot agree on this, I suppose. My main point is really that we don't get to feel the kind of sympathetic understanding a therapist who knows his patient intimately would have. Your sympathy, which is admirable in your work, seems to prevent you from seeing this story as it's meant to be seen. These women are meant to be perceived as big time mess-ups, not case histories. There's a sharp difference.
Inside every "despicable" adult, there's a wounded child. Notes on a Scandal grants access to that damaged part inside Barbara and Sheba, and I appreciate Eyre, Heller and Marber for the opportunity.
That's a different movie. It's the one you saw but not the one most people did or Eyre, Heller and Marber meant you to see.


For me, a key scene has Sheba and Barbara discussing the gap between the life we thought we'd have and the life we end up having. I'm quoting that again to show you it joins yourself and the characters in the same "we." You needn't say you "hate" the "editorial we." I've just used it a lot in my review and see no harm in it at all--so long as it doesn't coerce the reader into reactions he or she wouldn't really share. That's kind of what you're doing here. Do you see? It's a distortion on your point to say this is just "narrative exposition." You're implying our experience is the same as the protagonists'. But the whole point is that they've gone to a place one must not go.

That's part of my argument, not that you are more soft on them than I would be -- not the point at all -- but that you are more soft on them than the writers and filmmakers are meaning to be. My point in quoting Wilonsky. Your review seems out of tune with a movie which could have a review (Wilonsky's) entitled


Predator v. Predator
Everyone's miserable in Patrick Marber's latest, and it feels so good--implying that the action is deliciously dreadful.


The drama does build up to a fever pitch as you say, but the ascent is gradual and every such scene is congruent with the psychology of the characters. The point is it reaches a point that's too shrill. It doesn't matter that it's built up to gradually. And you yourself say, truly, that it moves fast. I'm not saying it ought to be done like The Holy Girl. I'm saying that if it were less melodramatic and emotionally over pumped up we could think better and we could contemplate what the people are doing more clearly. It would be played for subtle perception rather than shock value. "Eyre does a fine job overseeing performances by a terrific cast that rings true until female hysteria takes over the final act. " --Hollywood Reporter.

I suspected maybe Nighy's character is quoting Sheba in using the word "lair." In other words I thought I was possibly remembering wrong. But what I do clearly remember is that he does use it with a tone of heavy irony, as you may have noticed. So he makes it his word and a pejorative word. He's branding her as a predator.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
My main point is really that we don't get to feel the kind of sympathetic understanding a therapist who knows his patient intimately would have.
The problem with the Imperial "we" is that you assume that others perceive or feel the same way you do. "Feeling" is something experienced individually.

Your sympathy, which is admirable in your work, seems to prevent you from seeing this story as it's meant to be seen. These women are meant to be perceived as big time mess-ups, not case histories. There's a sharp difference. [b]That's a different movie. It's the one you saw but not the one most people did or Eyre, Heller and Marber meant you to see.
How do you know how the story is meant to be seen? How do you know what "most people" or "Eyre, Heller and Marber" meant me to see? This type of dictatorial, my-way-is-the-only-way stance leads nowhere. This is not about trying to understand another person's point of view, apparently. But proclaiming there's only one correct reading the material. Only one appropiate way to feel about it. It's beyond boring.

you are more soft on them than the writers and filmmakers are meaning to be.
The loneliness, regret, and desperate need to connect experienced by these women are made explicitly clear by the filmmakers in several ways: the dialogue, the voice-over narrations and the performances. There are references to both women having grown in family situations that were less than desirable and, in the case of Sheba, to the difficult nature of being a wife and mother, particularly the difficulty of raising a kid with a serious disability. These characters are deeply vulnerable, and written and performed so that their pain and vulnerability becomes quite evident and affecting.

[Chris Knipp]

I'm not being dictatorial, only trying to lead you to a more appropriate reading of the film. Let me quote phrases from some of the most favorable reviews of it as given on the top rankss of Notes on a Scandal's Metacritic page as further suggestions of what kind of tone the film has, as perceived by a variety of writers from a variety of publications:


--BITCH-PERFECT PERFORMANCES
--a wicked delight.
--at once a comedy of cluelessness and class, a melodrama of two women in the grips of wildly inappropriate obsessions…
-- Notes on a Scandal is another squirm-und-drang movie: too creepy-sad to be a comedy, too intense to watch quietly, without letting out frequent whoops.
-- The best-seller shelves are lined with novels developed from outlandish "what-if" propositions, and Zoe Heller's "What Was She Thinking: Notes on a Scandal" has a pip: What if you were committing a crime that would end your career and destroy your family, and you were caught in the act by a psychotic admirer who tries to blackmail you into a sexual relationship?
--Notes on a Scandal is a nice mug of poisoned eggnog for the holiday season -- a movie so smart and entertaining you almost don't feel its chill sicken your bones.
--a nasty little peek into the worst of human behavior
--rapier wit just this side of camp
--Barbara Covett, a repressed lesbian, is a vicious descendant of Henry James’s Olive Chancellor, the high-minded but morally blind older woman who tries to dominate the ingenuous Verena Tarrant in “The Bostonians.”
--[Marber's]perceptions of how the world works are as decisive as a slap..
--Taken at face value, these two women are simply despicable. But the screenplay has a bracing tincture of Grand Guignol...
--Dench delivers her barbed and nasty lines with a ferocity that sends a shiver down your spine... Do these sound like the writers would agree with an interpretation that asserted, as yours above does:

There are references to both women having grown in family situations that were less than desirable and, in the case of Sheba, to the difficult nature of being a wife and mother, particularly the difficulty of raising a kid with a serious disability. These characters are deeply vulnerable, and written and performed so that their pain and vulnerability becomes quite evident and affecting? Don't think so. Those elements are present, but your statements ignore how they are meant to be perceived in the film.


How do you know how the story is meant to be seen? How do you know what "most people" or "Eyre, Heller and Marber" meant me to see? Years of training as a critical reader of fiction and years of practice in the critical viewing of movies. That's how I know. And, in this case, I've also read a lot of the reviews and gotten a pretty good idea of how others read the film as well.

I'm not by any means dictating anything, and I'm not suggesting how you have to rate the film. My reading of it doesn't require anyone to rate it somewhat lower than tops, as I did, and the quotes above prove that, because these are from people whose reviews are evaluated at 80-90 points. The fact that I disagree with how these reviewers rate the film doesn't mean that I find their reading of the film's contents in any way inaccurate. I'm only trying to give a rough approximation of how one has to read what's going on it the film. Your reading is something you're quite welcome to, but it's pretty far outside the norm. Not my norm. The one set by a large number of critics.

[cinemabon]

The following critics gave "Notes on a Scandal" a favorable review (set for a wide release):

The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The Denver Post, The Boston Globe, Variety, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Wall Street Journal, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Chicago Sun-Times, New York Daily News, Rolling Stone, Village Voice, and Time magazine.

I would say that if that many "top" critics liked it, it must be the mainstream opinion.

source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/notes_on_a_scandal/?critic=creamcrop

[Chris Knipp]

Absolutely. I haven't been saying otherwise. It did get a few unfavorable reviews from high places but generally it has done extremely well. I was discussing Oscar's implied interpretation of what's going on in it just now, in doing so fully acknowledgeing that a lot of the reviews -- and the ones I was quoting from -- are highly favorable. I'm not out to convince anyone that it's bad or that the mainstream opinion is anything but positive. Plus I acknowledge that it's snappy and dazzling and has top actors in it. My opinion stands that Notes on a Scandal is "well paced and lively and good-looking" but glib, more bent on shocking than investigating character, and not as of lasting significance. I agree with mouton who seems to have agreed with me when he says "it could have been a much deeper character piece,especially considering the acting talent.. . .I still think it was a strong film ... just unfortunately disposable." That's exactly how I feel too. And since it's a wickedly black comedy, anybody who finds a sensitive treatment of the two women's problems there is missing the point more than a little bit.