Review of Notes on a Scandal (2006) by Blind P — 24 May 2010

I watched Notes On A Scandal.

(I'm restarting my campaign for film critic of the year).

EDIT:

Strong performance competes with ridiculously overblown melodramatic responses to make what might have been a better drama into something more valued for unintended comedy.

"Kiss Me" Cate Blanchett (a story for another day) alternates between a convincing portrait of a frustrated young housewife and teacher to an implausible emotional train wreck whose deconstructive outbursts filled me with gales of laughter. Hard to credit that such a looker like her would go down this road, when easily she could rope any punter to pound her by the train tracks, but I guess we'd have no movie if reality was in play.

Judi Dench hits the right notes as the sour and barren matriarch whose shrewish self-centered intentions make up the meat of the story. Even this though is brought to heights of strange exaggeration in the third act which pops the balloon of credibility.

So, Notes On A Scandal is entertaining despite itself. I'll have to alert Mr.Skin about the scene of Kiss Me Cate on the toilet, which is sure to raise hit counts from fetishists everywhere.