Review of Notes on a Scandal (2006) by Billys. — 17 Jan 2007

This is one of those movies that is worth seeing only because of the marquee names and nothing more. Patrick Marber has again written a screenplay about characters who are not very likeable to begin with and become even more unlikeable as the film goes on, resulting in a finale that requires no empathy for anyone involved except for a dead cat! But watching Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett tearing each other up and apart is all you need to make it worth the admission.

They both earn and deserve their place in the upper-echelon of working actors today, and Bill Nighy proves he should be there too. Has anyone noticed how many great films he's been in? The music by Philip Glass is excellent, though vaguely similar to The Hours, and all the other credits are good in a film that without it's stars would be just another episode of Footballer's Wives.