don't miss NOTES ON A SCANDAL

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/27/06 at 10:47am

I was dismayed by the snarly NY Times review of this Dench-Blanchette film. This is the most engaging, wickedly adult movie out there -- one that can make you gasp, laugh, and wait expectedly for the next turn. Dench's Barbara is a unique screen creation, a brilliant, viperous serial complusive who mines a crisis in the life of a romantic fixation for her own needs. Anyone bothered by semi-PC issues of her closeted state is missing the bigger point of the character and the film. The heart has reason reason knows not of, and Dench makes her palpably real and compelling. The Marber dialogue is delicious by any standard, vivid and quotable. And there are at least three confrontations in this film that might be classics of a type. If you want an alternative to apocolypic destruction and violence, penguins, or even those coveted Detroit girl singers, check this one out.

Updated On: 12/27/06 at 10:47 AM

[AC126748]

Posted: 12/27/06 at 5:55pm

Since you've seen it, can I ask you a quick question about it? I read the book several years ago and absolutely loved it, and I think the movie looks great. The book was a dark but very funny comedy. The trailers make it look just dark. Is the story still essentially a dark comedy, or has it become simply a drama?

[shiksa_goddess]

Posted: 12/27/06 at 6:10pm

I'm so excited about this movie.

[Hiram]

Posted: 12/27/06 at 7:17pm

I saw a screening a few weeks ago and wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of this deliciously dark film and Dame Judi Dench's stunning performance - She never ceases to amaze me. I read about seven reviews and The New York Times was the only negative one. Poor dear just didn't get it.

[PJ]

Posted: 12/27/06 at 10:12pm

I cannot wait to see this film. Judi and Cate together is better than sex.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 12/28/06 at 12:22am

I can't even describe how fantastic this film was. I thought Helen Miren was a lock for Best Actress this year until seeing Judi Dench's truly delicious portrayal of Barbara, a character that will be remembered for a VERY long time to come.

Log off the computer and go see it now!!!

[EvelynNesbit1906]

Posted: 12/28/06 at 1:53am

*************SPOILERS************************
I found the movie really entertaining and provocative, but the score and the very last scene were definite minuses for me. My comment to the friend who accompanied me to this afternoon's screening was that Phillip Glass just did not seem to be on the same page with the rest of the creative team as far as the film's politics are concerned. His sweeping "hysteria music" when Barbara explains to Sheba that she and a girlhood friend used to rub each other's forearms as a friendly gesture of sorts was just over the top in the worst way. And not even just then - there were multiple other occasions when the score seemed to peg lesbianism as a serious menace, whereas the screenplay (particularly by introducing Barbara's sister and some of her holiday lunchmates as friends who believe Barbara to be a closeted lesbian and would clearly be supportive of her if she came out) mostly indicated that lesbianism was not an evil. Rather, Barbara's sense that she had to be calculating and destructive in order to secure long-term companionship of any kind was the real danger. On the last scene: Well, why feature Barbara courting yet another mousey blonde white woman with lies? Is the implication that she preys on that particular demographic? If so, why? Wouldn't this implication of appearance-based "hunting" go against the film's otherwise complex thesis that Barbara experiences lust, hatred, amusement and sympathy all at once for those she seeks as "friends locked forever in [her] debt" .... that she was drawn to Sheba for her ridiculous behavior and not because she was a slim blonde woman with peachy skin .... that she despises the woman she most desires?

Having read the novel, I was also surprised to see some of the funnier passages reinvented as high drama for the screen - esp. the one where one character solicits another for her opinion as to whether a third character is attracted to him. I was still amused and laughed aloud but I didn't get the impression that most of the other people in the theater saw the humor, or that the film really asked them to see it. I often recommend the novel to people looking for a good dark comedy; the film, I think, will be more appealing to people who appreciate when a piece of art is unsettling and like to explore why afterward.

All of that said, I did like the film very much and will probably see it another time - maybe two more times - in the theater. The performances are not overhyped; if anything, "the little boy" deserves a nod or two. I will write more later - I hate to give the impression that I was generally offended by the film and didn't like it when really, I agree with the reviewers who have said that they enjoyed getting dirty 'vicariously' through this film. This could be my life-long affection for sordid material like Albee's "The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?" or something more complicated that I'll only understand through multiple screenings. Believe it or not, if I had to rank favorite films of the year, this would easily make top 5 - maybe even a three-way tie at #1 with Dreamgirls and Little Children.

P.S. On a lighter note.... how sweet were those calculated slaps Sheba gave Barbara across each cheek just before she tries decking her with the diary?
*************END SPOILERS**************************

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/28/06 at 10:16am

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT.

Evelyn: Wonderful post. I agree about the Glass score; in weight and business, it's tonally off. It doesn't ever suggest black comedy. But I began to ignore it, until I finally just managed to not let it interfere.

ButI got to see the film via an industry screener (my own, for any of you hunting down pirates), so that was a help. And it brings up a point independent of this film's impact -- the role of an audience. I could laugh out loud and find my own responses to the comedy without a house-response context. I thought it hysterical from the start, and so applaud Eyre's avoidance of anything maudlin. For example: a lesser director might allow us to dawdle over the Portia mourning sequences, because of course, Dench nails the pet owner's well of grief with precision. But he and Marber shrewdly give us only enough, to allow the beats to be emotional pieces of the puzzle.


I'm of two minds about the ending. Wasn't sure about it, and then yesterday read Marber's published text and in his intro, he says Heller gave him her imprimatur for the ending(s). I thought it actually gave us more of a sense of Dench's survival skills, rather than portraying her as a stalker.

Hate to admit it, but I actually felt a twinge of "go, girl!" when she zeros in on the blonde, because it meant she's not one to curl up in a ball. This made her anything but pitiful, and I think that's the biggest goal -- she's so not a tragic SISTER GEORGE or CHILDREN'S HOUR lesbian on a downward spiral. She has her type, loves the game, loves the pursuit, and whether it's "healthy" or not, she's who she is. I sort of admire that. She doesn't function in a world where her own self-definition means a great deal. Her voice over, so nastily observant, biased and wicked, reveals her to be a deeply brilliant woman. She may be as defined the "hunt" as she is by its reward--when she gets one. Does that make sense? I guess I see that as oddly positive, not pathetic. Much is made of her loneliness, but ultimately, she takes action on her own behalf to never be alone.

Oh -- but as to your point about the mousey white women. Isn't she totally besotted with Sheba long before she ever knows of her secret? The early Sundayt lunch sequence, stunning for being packed with exposition that never plays as such, gives us a window into her longing. The screenplay even makes it clear that at a certain point in observing Sheba dance, she's just deeply moved. Sheba's "ordinariness" is what arouses her interests, and her yen.

What a story! I can't wait to watch it again. My favorite movie of the year.

Updated On: 12/28/06 at 10:16 AM

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 12/28/06 at 12:10pm

I skipped the last two spoiler posts, but after reading your recommendation, Auggie, I will go see this. Although I adore both Blanchette and Dench, the trailer made this look like a lesbian version of Fatal Attraction. Just a tad too melodramatic. But if you say so, I am there.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/28/06 at 12:37pm

double post

Updated On: 12/28/06 at 12:37 PM

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/28/06 at 12:38pm

I'm so flattered, Ms. Sueleen, that you'd take my recommendation to heart. Yes, yes, to be sure it can sound like a lesbian FATAL ATTRACTION. But the character Dench plays is not pitiful or pitiable, not a chronic "loser." If anything, she has a kind of x-ray vision about the world, certainly school and its pretentions and paralysis that everyone else lacks. Yes, she's lonely, and no, she's not out and proud. But she's a survivor of a sort -- and who are we to judge her eccentric MO? She's miles from the Glenn Close psycho-stalker. She is self-deluding only in ways we all are at times. Or so I believe. I suppose I related to her more than I care to admit.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 12/28/06 at 4:48pm

I'm seeing it tonight. As a die hard Blanchett fan, I am excited to see what people like better about her here than, say, The Good German or Babel.

[Sylar2]

Posted: 12/28/06 at 6:23pm

Great film--- definitely worth the watch, Judi Dench as a crazy lesbian is simply brilliant.

Yes Miss.

[EvelynNesbit1906]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 1:56am

I just saw it again today and enjoyed it even more than I did last night, which may be attributed to the fact that I was by myself - uninhibited in my amusement by the friend who, during yesterday's screening, repeatedly noted her discomfort and popped me across the arm whenever I'd laugh at Barbara's choice of words for her diary recollections ("By the time I took my seat in the awnings, the opera was WELL into its first act"). I also noticed that - once again - the audience missed so much of the film's humor. In fact, one woman quickly turned around with an irritated look on her face as if to shush me for snickering when Barbara exclaims, "Someone has DIED!"

Nevertheless, I had the same problems with it this time as before.

Yes, there are many predatory lesbians and they can be a lot of fun, but why an England where Barbara is the only person we know to be gay?

The score is very similar to the one in Far From Heaven. There it worked because FFH is a reimagining of 1950's Sirk melodramas. I don't know that Notes on a Scandal was attempting to pay homage to that style. In any case, I have a definite preference for the book's lack of solid judgment for either Sheba's sexuality or Barbara's sexuality - which had so much to do with Barbara being an unreliable narrator, and the novel's only narrator at that. The film really has several narrators - Barbara, the director and Phillip Glass. So again, I had a lot of fun reading the book because it was unapologetically sordid thanks to the fact that Barbara had complete control over the narrative. Glass's choice to indicate sex with a minor and one woman's fondling of another as these horrid acts just kind of alienated me - not enough to make me avoid enjoying the film in theaters a third or even fourth time, but enough to make me think the AfterEllen.com critic was justified in calling it a throwback to an era of filmmaking that should only be revisited with a sharp critical eye. Ultimately I consider the film to be a guilty pleasure not because the subject matter is salacious - that's nothing to feel guilty about appreciating, we do it all the time - but rather because it takes a conservative stance from time to time when it could've worked to just revel in the "deviant acts" from beginning to end.

On top of that I'm still not convinced that an adult having sex with a 15/16-year-old boy is wrong just because he's that age, and the film says nothing to convince me to the contrary - though Glass tries with his score and Marber and Blanchett have likewise expressed repulsion over "what Sheba does."

However, I still find it really entertaining and thought-provoking, and if it weren't in my top five of the year I wouldn't have seen it twice in less than 24 hours.

[EvelynNesbit1906]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 2:14am

***SPOILERS***

Thanks for your response, Auggie. Obviously I'm with you on the value of a private screening for this particular film. There are many ways to appreciate the film but I gather most people will just read it as a psychological thriller in the vein of A Perfect Murder, whereas others - perhaps noting the similarities between Barbara cutting up her face while pawing through that dirt and Joan/Faye doing the same while cutting up a rose garden, or knowing that Marber himself is amused enough by the story that he'd like to see it turned into a comic opera - will see it as a drama/dark comedy/thriller hybrid.

Did you read the novel, by any chance? I was surprised that the film didn't consider [the novel] Barbara's suggestion that in addition to gaining Sheba as a lifelong companion by permitting the scandal, she could rise from her lower middle-class ranks by publishing the "notes." Of course it was quite funny enough just to hear Barbara say [in the film] that the months of commanding the paparazzi's attention were "the most entertaining" in her life. For most of tonight's screening, I wanted to pose with my arm around Barbara in a photograph as a way of expressing my support for her sense of "opportunity."

So funny, that schoolteacher. Believe me I'm not done talking about NOAS.

****END SPOILERS****

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 9:35am

I saw it last night, and while Blanchett and Dench do no wrong, this film simply doesn't deserve the praise it is receiving. Dench is brilliant in the part, and the wordsmithing of the lines is wonderful, but the general plot is problematic on many levels.

I always have problems with the gay predator being depicted on screen -- especially when combined with coercive acts. I don't see why Blanchett is being singled out for this work -- she is wonderful in the film (as usual), but she is significantly better in both of her other films this year.

[DG]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 9:44am

"I always have problems with the gay predator being depicted on screen -- especially when combined with coercive acts."

Why? It's not like it doesn't ever happen.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 9:58am

Yeah, but it's turning into such a tired, untrue stereotype: The gay person who can't control themselves when confronted with straight sexuality and must disrupt and destroy. THE WEDDING CRASHERS, ENDURING LOVE, THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR...
and those are just the ones off the top of my head.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 10:00am

The problem is this: when is the last time you saw a movie where the gay person hit on a straight person and the straight person said, "I'm not gay" and that was enough to make the gay person back off?

The uniform way gay people are portrayed in the media isn't something to ignore -- representation is THE politic of social change.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 1:27pm

Boy, I am constantly venting on the negative portrayals of gay people -- I began mouthing off at this very board three years ago on a tear about Jack McFarland as a d--kless, desexualized star of a minstral show (and provoked wrath) -- but I don't have a problem with a bruised and bruising character like the fascinating Barbara. This film's dynamic is complex, and Barbara is so much more than a "gay predator." Her brilliance and -- as noted above -- survival skills are extraodinary. Just because she takes perverse pleasure in her hunt for inappropriate people (gee, none of us have done that -- or have had friends who did that, have we?), and demonstrates loneliness and vulnerability doesn't make her pitiful or pitiable, in my opinion. But that's just my take. I think these artists collaborated to portray the cause and effect between secrets and obsession, and negotiated pacts between unlikely people. It's a story of two troubled women whose spheres interface. I don't think it has any obligation to portrary the homosexual drives in any more evolved or positive a light than it does the heterosexual -- both could be seen by someone in the audience as skewed here.

For what it's worth, Barbara's straight friends and family wish her well in her gay pursuit. No one judges her harshly for being a lesbian. The film's universe isn't punishing toward homosexual love; this particular woman has her way of handling her desires. Again, it's a flavor of existance, and to my thinking need not be definitive. This is one story about one unique 65 year old woman.

But I see how quickly debates on this story's merit might turn into a general discussion about gay role model characters. Perhaps inevitable, like the BROKEBACK backlash. I respect people's right to respond, particularly in an era like the one we're enduring. But to me, artists like Eyre, Marbger, Blanchette, and Dench are hardly indifferent to these times. Personally, I look for moving, fresh stories about all kinds of love and obsession, and this is just one. And SPOILER: the lesbian lands on her feet, and doesn't "pay."

Updated On: 12/29/06 at 01:27 PM

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 4:26pm

Now, I'm not saying onne couldn't argue that the film could be read in a different way, but the question of representation has to do with predicting how others will read the text (in this case, Notes on a Scandal). In this case, I think it would be wrong to say people won't fit Dench's character into the category of the gay people who can't keep their hands off. Does Dench have more complex issues? Surely. However, I predict most will read this role as a gay role, and not as a human role. Therefore, the representation of the gay body comes into play. Thus, the issues of representation of culture abound. The issue isn't whether we know people like this, but how normalized the bahavior is portaryed as. In this film, her "gay-ness" is not normalized, it is secret, it is hidden, and it is perverse. Yes, I know people like that...but this story gets written onto gay bodies. And, with so few stories of liberation to be told, this story becomes awfully tired and problematic.

As far as will and Grace goes, I think that show normalizes Jack -- which makes the role perfectly acceptable to me -- he is interacted with as human -- like you and me, not an anti-social predator-freak like Dench.

Updated On: 12/29/06 at 04:26 PM

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 4:39pm

You'll disagree, but I think arguing against the character's validity and depth merely becauase "most people" -- a dangerous generality -- will find her only a gay stereotype puts rather restrictive handcuffs on collaborative artists. Artists who, in this case, have an impressive collective track record to suggest subtle, sensitive expressions of the human experience are the likely intention. It becomes the same argument against the existence of THE SOPRANOS. Most Italian-Americans are not part of organized crime but a lot of people think they are, therefore, David Chase shouldn't have created a multi-faceted exploration of one family.

I dunno, we all have buttons, don't we touchme? I know thinking people who dismiss WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? because they think it's a gay playwright's rant against "normalized" straight people.

I'm generally of the opinion that artists must write and act the stories that move them, as they will always illuminate human condition for someone out there in the dark, and we can buy tickets or not, and indeed, have these stirring discussions.

[roquat]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 4:52pm

In the novel, Barbara loftily dismisses the possibility of her and Sheba being engaged in "some sort of sapphic love affair" when her fellow teachers suggest it. Her obsession with Sheba is much more murky and creepy and controlling than a mere sexual attraction--it's closer to the manipulative gamesmanship of the two women in Sartre's masterpiece NO EXIT. Anyone who writes it off as "lesbian stereotype" is oversimplifying.

Personally, I prefer such characters, who have recognizable psychological truth in them, to the Hollywood happy/positive "role models" which tedious people are always clamoring for--like Greg Kinnear's sexless plaster saint in AS GOOD AS IT GETS.

[pushdabutton]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 9:45pm

Great movie. I saw it today and thought it was fantastic.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 10:14pm

If gay people were being represented as more than 2 dimensions, I wouldn't have a problem with this film (in the same way I don't have a problem with The Sopranos because there are other Italian bodies being represented on film).

So, half the problem I have is the lack of other films. And the other half of the problem is the way this film continues the tendency to sell tickets by marginalizing gay people further.

I am sure the intention of the filmmakers and the actors is to illuminate the human condition, I just fear that this film will be used to justify marginalization instead of liberation. Of course, as is always the case with texts, the choice is up to the one who interprets.