Notes on a Scandal (Richarde Eyre, 2006)

Notes on a Scandal (Richard Eyre, 2006)

Excerpt:

In the wake of Helen Mirren's sweep of Hollywood's annual horse derbies for playing Her Royal Highness (a victory that was for the most part deserved, having cracked open that unattractive granite façade to reveal the hint--and it's the sense that you're getting a mere hint that's so compelling--of something warm and vital pulsing inside), two equally impressive performances seem to have been forgotten: Judi Dench's and Cate Blanchett's, for this picture.

Richard Eyre's adaptation of Zoe Heller's novel "What Was She Thinking: Notes on a Scandal" doesn't do much in the way of using the medium to tell its story, beyond the occasional cliché of using handheld shots to suggest the chaos of reporters surrounding a notorious public figure, or the benign chaos that reigns when a family goes about its business of contented living, but the theater veteran does inspire wonderful work from these two royalties. As with his previous picture "Iris," a biopic about author Iris Murdoch, he pairs Ms. Dench with a younger woman--there, Kate Winslet, as the younger Murdoch; here Blanchett, as Sheba (short for Bathsheba) Hart, the object of not-so-obscure desire by the rather obviously named Barbara Covett (Dench).