Dench on top form
Deborah Ross Notes on a Scandal 15, Nationwide Notes on a Scandal is a fairly nasty book and this is a fairly nasty film — very Patricia Highsmithian is the nearest I can get to it — but this does not mean you should deny yourselves the very great pleasure of it. In fact, don't, unless you aren't keen on seeing Dame Judi Dench at the top of her game, in which case I only have this to say to you: you are mad and not worth tuppence and go see something with Jennifer Aniston in it, why don't you? Possibly, there are roles Dame Judi couldn't pull off convincingly — a bedside table, perhaps, or a piece of cheese — but, with material like this, she'll knock your socks off so long as they aren't still in Sheffield.* Here, Ms Dench plays the suitably named Barbara Covett, a history teacher at a sink secondary school, who has been there far too long and no longer believes that teaching can make a difference. It's no more than 'crowd control', she says, and anyway 'all children are feral'. Barbara is disappointed, lonely, bitter; a repressed lesbian who has never been able to explore or express her sexual feelings in any satisfactory way. She refers to herself as among `the chronically untouched'. But then along comes Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), the slightly dishevelled but beautiful and luminous art teacher (always bathed in light by the director, Richard Eyre). Barbara quickly becomes sexually intoxicated. More, she is self-deluded enough to think that Sheba will — must! — save her from her desolate, friendless, chronically untouched existence.
Sheba, though, not only has a husband (Bill Nighy) and two children but also, much against her better judgment, embarks on an illicit affair with a 15-yearold student, Steven (Andrew Simpson). When Barbara discovers this and gets to be the keeper of Sheba's secret, what follows is a cat-and-mouse game which, aided by Philip Glass's mountingly suspenseful music, becomes almost Hitchcockian in its intensity. Will Barbara succeed in acquiring Sheba for herself? And might Barbara have secrets of her own? Etc., etc.
Although Zoe Heller's original book was largely written in the form of Barbara's secret journal entries, this adaptation, by the playwright and screenwriter Patrick Marber, neatly gets round it by having Barbara narrate via reading the entries out loud, which works rather well. Also, Eyre moves everything along at such a deliciously fast pace that you're in and out in around 90 minutes, which is just the way I like it. And it's just the way my bladder likes it. When films start creeping up and over the 100-minute mark, my bladder and I start to look very downcast indeed.
Now, this film does have a central weakness, just as the book does, which is largely to do with the implausibility of Sheba's affair with Steven. Indeed, aside from being a schoolboy, he is also rather dampfaced and uncharismatic, as most 15-yearolds are. (I know. I'm mother to one and, although it pains me to say it, he's as dampfaced and uncharismatic as they come. I could no more imagine a 40+ woman fancying him than I could that he might one day pick up a wet towel.) Plus, if you had Bill Nighy at home, why would you? I know I wouldn't. We are meant to believe that Sheba yearns to be young and reckless again, but still. It doesn't exactly add up.
That said, though, a weakness does not have to be a fatal flaw, or even much of a distraction, and Dench is certainly sufficient compensation. Just by a tilt of her head or the shift in her carriage she can indicate the most blinding rage. Dench plays it as old, with dead hair and thick ankles, but never opts for the stereotype of frustrated battle-axe. Yes, Barbara can freeze a rowdy class with a single gimleteyed look but, at the same time, Dench can put such a yearning quality into the voice we can't help but detect an undercurrent of girlish, romantic dreams as yet unfulfilled. Even Barbara's vilest remarks — a fat colleague is `the pig in knickers'; Sheba's Down's syndrome son is 'that tiresome court jester' — are imbued with a kind of pathos. However, I'm not saying that we ever feel sorry for Barbara, because we don't. She's like the big spider at the zoo, the one so terrible that you can neither look at it nor not look at it; the one that transfixes you as you're simultaneously minded to recoil. Judi Dench is a great, great actress. If anyone could pull off a bedside table or piece of cheese, I think it would be her.
* I'd like to thank Mr Craig, the reader who was 'devastated' to hear my socks had been blown off by The Last King of Scotland and sent me a £10 cheque to replace them. I did, but then Dame Judi blew them off again. Can I have another £10?
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