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Notes on a Scandal
Dangers of the closet
2006
Review: February 23, 2007
Director: Richard Eyre
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, Bill Nighy
Might add to the fun.
THE SETUP:
Repressed homosexuality finds a target in a wispy young teacher who has an affair with a student.
DISCUSSION:
One of the last few Oscar-bait movies I haven’t seen yet [I saw Letters from Iwo Jima and The Last King of Scotland and just not been interested enough to write about them yet. In addition to not having much of interest to say about them], this movie was recommended by someone on the CdM message board as “something I really need to include on my site.” I really love that a lot of readers GET that part of what this site is all about is digging into the underlying sexual content of movies. Plus, of course, there's the gay interest here. Yay, you!
It was good. I didn’t expect it to be quite so funny, but I was giggling throughout and the guy next to my friend was laughing hysterically all the way through. It’s some London school. Judi Dench is Barbara Covett [Covett, get it? COVET?], an older battle-axe teacher who considers herself quite superior and unbeholden to the rules and regulations of the common rabble. In one of the first scenes, her fellow teachers are turning in reports they have prepared over the summer on their department, strengths and weaknesses, goals and recommendations for change. Everyone turns in at least 50 pages, but Barbara turns in one paragraph. Her department is fine, gets consistent marks, and has no need to change.
We also find out that she is an isolated woman with a cat who writes about how inferior everyone else is in her diary. The first words of the movie are “People have always trusted me with their secrets.” Maybe it’s because we know going in how she is going to use Cate Blanchett’s secrets against her that all of these statements are tinged with high irony and thus become very dryly funny.
Cate Blachett is Sheba Hart [i.e. HEART], a new art teacher at the school. She makes waves for being young and “wispy” [as Barbara says] and attractive. Barbara is initially contemptuous of her, until she one day stops a classroom fight for her and Sheba invites her for lunch. Suddenly Sheba is attractive and vital though young and, in Barbara’s mind, needing the wisdom and guidance of an older woman.
Barbara’s interest is further piqued by discovering that Sheba is married to an older man, Bill Nighy as Richard, and has a son with Down’s Syndrome. She intuits a lot about Sheba from this information: young, artistic girl who married an older man expecting excitement and stability, now discovering that she’s bored and feels repressed. We see a picture of Sheba in younger days which looks like she’s part of a punk band, which explains a lot. She takes Barbara into her studio and opens up to her about her life and its disappointments. We know that Barbara is taking all of this in with a mind to gain more and more control over the blithely naïve Sheba. This is what makes it hilarious, as you’re just sitting there watching this spider gather the materials for her trap. Barbara tells us [through voice-over readings of her diary] that she intends to manipulate herself into a closer relationship with Sheba. In this way it’s a little bit like parts of the fabulous Love and Death on Long Island, wherein John Hurt uses information he has to ensnare an innocent Jason Priestly.
Then Barbara discovers that Sheba is having an affair with a male student. She calls her and demands to meet, and Sheba stupidly spills all the details of the affair. Seeing her chance, Barbara realizes that she can wield ultimate power over Sheba by agreeing not to tell anyone. She does, however, demand that Sheba stop the affair.
SPOILERS > > >
Sheba doesn’t. The boy gives her a sob story about how his father is abusive and mother has leukemia, and keeps showing up at her house and demanding to see her. The movie [and Blanchett’s performance] is very good in that we understand that Sheba is bored and a little desperate and doesn’t exercise good judgement, but we never turn on her or think she’s stupid. She and Barbara grow closer, and while this happens the movie develops tension as we know that one day Barbara is going to expect too much, Sheba will rebel, and Barbara will wield the secret as a weapon. It unfolds like that, with its own wrinkles that I’ll let you discover when you see the movie.
< < < SPOILERS END
My friend and I had the same impression; that it’s only 98 minutes and it barrels along at quite a clip, but at the same time seemed longer and very fully detailed. We understand where both characters are coming from and understand how they got there. I think things like the picture we saw of Sheba as a young punk go far in this regard, as they happen very quickly but go far to illuminate her character.
One also has to question what the movie is ultimately about. My friend thought it was fairly scandalous in being a screed about predatory lesbians, and that is certainly an element, but I am more inclined to think that it sails under the flag of “dangers of the closet,” that is, the real problem is that Barbara is closeted and represses all of her attractions, so that they get transformed into devious schemes to ensnare women, rather than the open, loving, sharing, caring, mutually-orgasmic relationship she could be having—although probably not, as we all know—if she were out. Although the feeling one gets is that while this is the movie’s fairly unimpeachable defense, that’s just an excuse for a upscale-trashy screed on predatory lesbians.
Regardless, it’s a clever and entertaining one with good performances.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
Yes, it’s a well-made and thoughtful movie.
