11/10/2021

Notes on a Scandal (2006) - Great performances in Eyre's layered drama-thriller

 

+ Best Drama-Thriller of the Year + Best Erotic Movie of the Year + Best London Movie of the Year + Best UK Movie of the Year 

 

Gold and shadow-filled red is used on the stars' faces of this poster for Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal

A younger woman, Sheba, begins teaching at an ordinary London school, where she attracts a clingy friend in the aging spinster Barbara.

 

Notes on a Scandal is written by Patrick Marber (Asylum (2005)), adapting the same-titled 2003 novel by Zoë Heller (The Believers (2008)), and directed by great English filmmaker Richard Eyre (The Ploughman's Lunch (1983)).

Judi Dench (Four in the Morning (1965)) is formidable as the dried-up, scheming, selfish older woman, and Cate Blanchett (The Aviator (2004)) is just as perfect as the younger Sheba, who lets her life take a free-fall. Their acting in the same dramatic minefield issued by Sheba's affair with an underage student is the film's great attraction. Bill Nighy (Guest House Paradiso (1999)) is also outstanding as Sheba's cuckolded husband, and Eyre gets seductive scenes out of the young Andrew Simpson (Road Games (2015)).

Notes on a Scandal is an intriguing, a bit literary but nevertheless excellent film about the gossipy and self-serving in us all.

 

Related posts:

 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]





Watch a trailer for the movie here

 

Cost: 15 mil. $

Box office: 49.8 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 3.32 times its cost)

[Notes on a Scandal was released 25 December (USA) and runs 91 minutes. Shooting took place from August - October 2005 in England, including in London. The film opened #66 to a 6k $ first weekend in 1 theater in North America, where it peaked at #13 and in 682 theaters (different weeks), grossing 17.5 mil. $ (35.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 11.5 mil. $ (23.1 %) and Australia with 4.9 mil. $ (9.8 %). The film was nominated for 4 Oscars, winning none: It lost Best Actress (Dench) to Helen Mirren in The Queen, Supporting Actress (Blanchett) to Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls, Adapted Screenplay to William Monahan for The Departed, and Score (Philip Glass (Elena (2011)) to Gustavo Santaolalla for Babel. It was also nominated for 3 BAFTAs, won 2/4 British Independent Film awards, was nominated for a David di Donatello award, 3 Golden Globes and won a National Board of Review award, among many other honors. Eyre returned with The Other Man (2008). Dench returned in Quantum of Solace (2008); and Blanchett in Hot Fuzz (2007) for an uncredited cameo and as a starring actor in I'm Not There (2007). Notes on a Scandal is certified fresh at 87 % with a 7.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]


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