Movieo
Poster for Notes on a Scandal

Notes on a Scandal

One woman's mistake is another's opportunity.

2006 · 1h 32m · R Drama, Romance
Directed by Richard Eyre

Seen it?

Overview

A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
87%
Tomatometer
Fresh

Blanchett has also recently appeared in The Good German and Babel, but this represents far and away her best work.

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
Rotten

Richard Eyre's direction merely plays up the melodramatic aspects of Zoe Heller's novel, screenwriter Patrick Marber's acidic dialogue occasionally slips into the overwritten, and the rest of the cast gamely chews table scraps.

Melissa Anderson, Time Out New York
Fresh

Bill Nighy is stunning in the small but pivotal role of Sheba's devastated husband, and Dench locates the desperate pathos in Barbara's malevolence.

Jessica Winter, Time Out
Fresh

This compact, fierce and frightening domestic thriller is the most violent film in many a day. The rage is in the angry words, the deepest thoughts of its 'heroine,' and the fear about what might come from those words is palpable.

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel
Fresh

While Glenn Close played her Fatal Attraction character's 'I will not be ignored' psycho-obsession out front and out loud, Dench does it as subtext, making it all the more insidious, frightening ... and fascinating.

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Comments

Talk about the film with other members

More films