Notes on a Scandal

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).