In a tale of obsession, usually there's the initiator of dark and twisted desire and the end-receiver who naturally suffers the consequences of being the apple in the Garden of Eden. But what if there's a third party involved in such tale? Just like you're talking to someone in the phone without you realising that there's somebody else furtively listening to your voice, every whisper, every sigh, every word. In Notes On A Scandal, the school grounds served as the Garden of Eden; there's Eve, there's the apple, and of course the inevitable - the snake.


Barbara Corvett (played magnificently by Dame Judi Dench) is a History teacher in a British state-run secondary school, and just like her teachings her life and the school itself are on the verge of breakdown. But everything changes when a new teacher comes in, the fresh and fruitful Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett). As the story happens in surmountable speed, art-teacher Hart, who has got a family of her own, a husband (Bill Nighy), a daughter and an autistic son, fell to a scandalising and illicit affair with her 15-year old student. So to continue with the tale of snakes and apples and this damn silly Eve, the third party belonged to Barbara, a miserable old lady who owned nothing else in life but a cat named Portia, who was demented enough to seize the opportunity right in front of her, taking advantage of another person in the brink of madness.


The question is then thrown right in front of our feet: what does Barbara want? She's a old teacher who doesn't care about anything anymore, and feels that her world is slowly deteriorating around her. And when she took a glimpse of this kindred spirit that was Sheba, white and lovely, she wanted something else. Friendship, perhaps? Or maybe a little tinge of hopeless romance. She has the quietness of a feline herself, but when she strikes, she pulls out claws of a leopard. She comes to the rescue of teenage boys fighting, in which Sheba couldn't stop, and effectively shown her sense of command and in a blip, the boys stopped fighting and she delightfully mutters "They respect me."


Then they started becoming friends. Barbara, at first, despised her for being so careless and so weak-willed, and slowly Sheba spills her secrets to her. And while Sheba talks about her past, Barbara carefully listens, sometimes distracted by the sight in front of her and when she comes home late at night, she also spills secrets of her own in a little diary written in black ink encrusted with gold stars. But there's one secret Sheba hasn't told: she's having an affair with one of her students. This made Barbara felt infuriated, disgusted but intoxicated. She set her claws on Sheba, and for one thing, she never lets Sheba go for her secret was in a hidden confidence. Knowing that Sheba is in Barbara's debt, Barbara surreptitiously manipulates that if they're not to be together, the secret would be out to her family and to the world.


This film for sure is not everybody's cup of tea. As for people who are easily disgusted by such unbelievable relationships, leash yourself away and keep your opinions on your own for Notes On A Scandal doesn't need your objections; it needs your ears. Although the film is about homosexuality, about an old lesbian who's greying away falling in lust with her co-teacher, it's a brilliant move for the film not to inform the audience straight away about the unforgiving relationships and gender confusions. We are told that Barbara is just a lonely old lady whose teaching life doesn't help her anymore, and that Sheba is confused soul wanting to set free to the world. But people wouldn't understand why such a person would want to have a sordid affair with a 15-year old boy. As she spoke with urgency and sigh, "I have never been followed like this in my entire life." Sheba has her reasons, it maybe stupid, daft or adulterous, but her reasons make her Sheba, not somebody else. After all, Notes On A Scandal isn't really about human scandals, but about human frailty.


Dame Judi Dench justifies that she could steal one whole show. It's her merciless, ruthless performance as Barbara Corvett that kept the whole film in breathless pace. She may be old, but her talents are skin-deep, and playing this manipulative old bitch makes you say, "Damn this woman!" It's as effective as that. But what beguiles me was that she doesn't only demands hate and loathing to her character, at the end we feel sympathy for her soul. Also, Cate Blanchett amazingly nailed Sheba Hart to the ground and even with Dench's intimidating presence, she delivers the exact amount of fragility to Hart. Even though we must consider to also hate her for being so impetuous, for going to bed with an underage student, we feel sadness in her character which also generates sympathy. Bill Nighy, who plays as Sheba's husband, was corporeally amazing as well. It's a wonderful understated performance by one Britain's greatest actors alive.


Kudos also to the blatant and sharp-edged script by Patrick Maber (who had also penned Closer) and the musical score by Philip Glass, very ominous and adds to the eerieness of the film. Notes On A Scandal succeeds in its genre and Richard Eyre directs with fluent grace; his shots were incredible, if not indelible.


If your not into this kind of film, your tickets are still worth to witness superb performances by Blanchett, Nighy and most of all, Dench for playing one of cinema's most horrifying, most psychologically unnerving and manipulating spinsters. This is the only performance, whom I think, that would make Helen Mirren run out of Oscar gold.


Rating: A-