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Notes on a Scandal
List Price: $19.98Our Price: $14.99 You Save: $4.99 (25%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
EAN: 0024543438915
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Item Dimensions: 20
Label: 20th Century Fox
Languages: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1English (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 SurroundSpanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
MPN: 2243891
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Region Code: 1
Release Date: April 17, 2007
Running Time: 92 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
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Editorial Review:Gold stars to all for this taut psychological thriller based on Zoe Heller's novel that that gets more insidiously twisted as it unfolds. Oscar-nominated for her chilling performance, Dame Judi Dench gives a master class as schoolteacher Barbara Covett, a frumpy, friendless, and flinty spinster who lives with her cat. A formidable presence, Barbara is standoffish with colleagues and not one for students to trifle with (not that they'd dare). Cate Blanchett, also an Oscar nominee and winner of several critics society awards for her impassioned performance, costars as Sheba Hart, the new, overwhelmed art teacher who first becomes enthrall to Barbara after she steps in to help Sheba discipline unruly students. Barbara cultivates a friendship, and insinuates herself into Sheba's chaotic life, which includes her older husband (Bill Nighy), teenage daughter, and a son with Down's syndrome. Then, Barbara catches the reckless Sheba in a compromising position with a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson). Seizing her opportunity, the calculating Barbara does not turn her in. Rather, she wants to "help" her. "She's the one I've been waiting for," she writes in the journals she meticulously keeps, and which provide, in voiceover, her corrosive commentary. This all sounds very Fatal Attraction, but no boiling rabbits, please; we're British. Philip Glass's Oscar-nominated score accentuates the growing menace. Though there is little in these characters to admire, (one would think GLAAD would have something to say about the predatory turn Barbara's character takes), Notes on a Scandal is a compelling tour-de-force for its Grade-A cast. --Donald Liebenson
Notes on a Scandal Extras 
Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench on their characters in the film |
Beyond Notes on a Scandal 
Book to Movie Adaptations | 
More Cate Blanchett Films | 
What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal: A Novel |
Stills from Notes on a Scandal
Academy AwardJ winners Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett give wickedly entertaining Oscar-nominated performances - one as a woman consumed by her colleague's guilty secret the other a victim to her own dark obsessions - in this sexy stylish thriller. Dench mesmerizes as Barbara Covett a teacher who rules over her classroom with an iron fist yet leads a desperate solitary life outside it. That is until she meets radiant new art teacher Sheba Hart (Blanchett). Although at first overjoyed with her newfound kindred spirit when Barbara discovers that Sheba is having an affair with a teenage student her jealously and rage spiral out of control.System Requirements:Runtime: 121 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 024543438915 Manufacturer No: 2243891
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Notes on a scandal
The service from this seller was great, the movie itself, not so much. I guess I'm just not big on English films!
Rating:  - Melodramatic, not a great film but fun to watch
This film was fun to watch but is so melodramatic and soap operaish I couldn't take it seriously. The situation (Cate Blachett having an affair with a student and being pursued by lesbian Judi Dench) is great material but what happened to British understatement? Instead, we get fights, tantrums, screaming matches, a dead cat, and mascara dripping down Blachett's face like a clown. The fights were worthy of Jerry Springer on a bad day. I thought soap suds would come of the DVD player after I've played ... Read More
Rating: - Taut, suspenseful and well done
Cate Blanchett plays an art teacher (Sheba) who inexplicably has a dalliance with a 15-year old student. Older faculty member Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) becomes aware of the affair and uses it as implied blackmail material to maneuver a close relationship.
Covett is an aging spinster, tormented by loneliness and carrying on an active interior life through her compulsive diary entries. When the affair is finally exposed, the consequences rip apart multiple relationships and set the stage ... Read More
Rating:  - Very disturbing
I love Judi Dench, but need to stick to movies like "Cranford" when I want to see her, I guess. This movie is very disturbing. Only one person seems to have a bit of moral character and that person is Sheba's husband, who reacts with understandable and justifiable rage when he learns of Sheba's affair (not to mention the touching scenes of him with his and Sheba's Downs Syndrome son). I have learned my lesson about R rated movies. In this film, the gory details are graphically shown--sexual scenes between ... Read More
Rating: - Tightly Wound
With today's spate of teacher/student sex scandals, this one feeds the appetite to understand how these things happen. You'll hate Judy Dench, but her acting is top-notch. The plot has a nice twist, not well concealed. The 'romances,' both of them, are not especially believable. A freak show, really. But worth watching, and definitely compelling.
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