An older, lonely, high school teacher, Barbara Covett (Judi Dench), befriends a new teacher, Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchette), who is married with children. Barbara lives up to her last name. Before you know it, Barbara becomes a confidant of Sheba's, but Sheba has her own scandalous dalliance with a 15 year old at school, and Barbara uses this information to keep Sheba in her good graces for as long as it was tenable.

It sounds like one of those Lifetime movie of the week, and frankly, it ends up like one of them as well, but the performances by Dench and Blanchette elevate the material, which has a few dark laughs at the predicament the characters find themselves in the last act. Dench earns her Best Actress nomination, but Blanchette's character is slightly underwritten, but she does get to light up the screen in the last act of the film. Bill Nighy (playing Sheba's much older husband) also cracked me up in a couple of scenes as things spiral out of control for Sheba with Barbara's persistent presence in their lives.

I give it 3 stars, or a grade of B (mainly for the acting performances, not the story).

(Corrected Nighy's name)

Bill Nighy.

Though I imagine the Science Guy would have been interesting as well.

Just saw it this weekend. It was pretty standard/predictable and trashy, but definitely worth seeing for the performances. Dench was especially amazing.

This movie is titled "Notes on a Scandal," not "Notes from a Scandal." Terrific film, btw. A master class on acting from Dench.

Just got around to seeing this, and really enjoyed it. The two main performances were fantastic, and definitely worthy of the Oscar nominations that they garnered. Although the plot was rather predictable, I would rank this movie ahead of some of the pictures that got nominated for Best Picture.

Notes On A Scandal (**/*****). Terrific, terrific performances and a mostly sharp screenplay can't make up for the implosion of the plot at the end. Aside from the acting -- Blanchett's exceptionally nuanced and subtle (bar one major, bone-shattering outburst) Sheba and Dench's calculating, cold and creepy sexual predator -- the film did nothing for me except trap me in 90 minutes of moral discomfort. Maybe I expected to like the film too much, given Blanchett is probably my favourite actress; or at least one of them. But it's hard to like or enjoy a film that makes you so uneasy and offers such a bleak view into solitary life and how it can twist people.