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Notes On A Scandal

Oscar winners Dame Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett star in Notes on a Scandal, a thoroughly engaging - and at times sickening - thriller that follows a lonely spinster's obsession with a troubled, arguably pedophilic young woman. The result is an hour and a half of enjoyably revolting suspense.

Dench stars as Barbara Covett, an emotionally hardened veteran teacher at a London school. She becomes fascinated with the school's new art teacher, Sheba Hart, played by Blanchett, and records her developing relationship with Hart in her journals, a lifetime hobby that has provided her a spiritual outlet during her years of loneliness. When Covett catches Hart sleeping with a 15-year-old student as a result of her unhappy family life, Covett uses it as a blackmail opportunity to slowly trap her young love interest in her web.

The film's touchy - and timely - theme of teacher-student affairs will be difficult for most viewers to witness initially. However, watching Dench perform as a desperately conniving, hopeless romantic is a treat to see. Despite her twisted desires, and her unconventional ways of obtaining them, one can’t help but sympathize with Covett, right up to the film’s satisfying, full circle ending.

Stage Beauty director Richard Eyre helms the Golden Globe-nominated film, based on the 2003 novel by Zoe Heller. Bill Nighy, recently of Pirates of the Caribbean fame, also stars.

Written by: Kevin Manahan

Reviewers Rating: 9.5
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