Notes on A Scandal...

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I went to see this last night. I was dreading it as I didn't really know what to expect and after all the Zoe Williams hate on ILE and Cate Blanchett* being involved I was v worried.

I was wrong, it is fantastic! The acting (esp. Dench) is superb, the music (by Phillip Glass of all people) is extremely evocative, and the atmosphere created is beyond reproach. Having not read the novel I can't say whether it deviates too much or if it remains true to the original.

Has anyone else seen it? What did they think? Has anyone read the book and can compare how different they are?

*I know she is great but after the whole bassoon-voiced smirky thing in LOTR I came to dislike her!

― Kv_nol (Kv_nol), Thursday, 8 February 2007 12:56 (eighteen years ago)

it was zoe heller wot wrote it.

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Thursday, 8 February 2007 12:58 (eighteen years ago)

Zoe Williams? Really?

I saw the trailer and it TOTALLY put me off.

― === temporary username === (Mark C), Thursday, 8 February 2007 12:59 (eighteen years ago)

it was zoe heller wot wrote it.

All that worry (not much admittedly) for nothing?!

― Kv_nol (Kv_nol), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:00 (eighteen years ago)

Also, screenplay by Patrick "Better When He Was Funny" Marber

― Tom D. (Dada), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:01 (eighteen years ago)

I saw it a couple nights ago. It's a terrific movie, but I can't honestly recommend seeing it in a theater vs. renting it from Netflix. On the other hand, Bill Nighy is my nuGod.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:10 (eighteen years ago)

I'm guessing it's not as good as The Killing of Sister George, right?

― It's Tough to Beat Illious (noodle vague), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:12 (eighteen years ago)

No Oscars for Beryl Reid :(

― Tom D. (Dada), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:15 (eighteen years ago)

one month passes...

I was listening to the Filmspotting podcast and one of the guys on there referred to Notes On A Scandal as being like a "British working-class" version of Single White Female. It wondered how it was possible to see the protagonists (schoolboy excepted) as anything other than middle-class. Do Americans think our houses look that bad or something?

― Alba, Monday, 19 March 2007 18:46 (eighteen years ago)

The Dench character does shop at Asda, so in that sense if no other she is working-class.

― Eyeball Kicks, Monday, 19 March 2007 20:34 (eighteen years ago)

She only does it so she can pat the arses of fellow shoppers going "That's Asda price" though.

― Alba, Monday, 19 March 2007 20:36 (eighteen years ago)

the American 'middle class' is the British 'working class.'

Our working class are your chavs or estate-dwellers or whatever.

― milo z, Monday, 19 March 2007 21:40 (eighteen years ago)

wait, no, I have that backward somehow. It's been a long time since I cared about England. But I distinctly remember that our definitions of working and middle class are different (based on Johnny Rotten's autobiography and "history of punk" books).

― milo z, Monday, 19 March 2007 21:42 (eighteen years ago)

But anyway this is an awful film, and the muddled class signifiers are significant: its awfulness is partly down to its muddled sense of genre, neither thriller (WC) nor issue-led psychological drama (MC). It looks like an extended trailer – every scene has this awful music prodding you. Every conversation has this music glutting up – I’ve never had a conversation like that – and everything everyone said was stupid. The least clichéd moment was the after-dinner dance, which was excruciating in quite a fresh way. The fucking scenes got me going a bit, but that was more my own doing. Otherwise, depressing shit.

― Eyeball Kicks, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 01:25 (eighteen years ago)

Pity the poor 15-year old whose first blowjob is by Cate Blanchett.

― milo z, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 01:39 (eighteen years ago)

Pity the 15-year-old beneath milo z too!

― Eyeball Kicks, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 01:50 (eighteen years ago)

four weeks pass...

I saw this film yesterday. Two things stood out for me. First, Judy Dench was so utterly creepy I had to turn away a couple of times, she made my skin crawl. It was a great performance.
Second, I thought that although the music was somewhat "evocative" (mentioned upthread by someone), I found it to be quite blunt and invasive.

― Drooone, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 02:11 (eighteen years ago)

a tony [i}Fatal Attraction[/i], which is to say: TOTAL trash, but in that it's not dull.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 02:55 (eighteen years ago)

Philip Glass' score is awful.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 02:55 (eighteen years ago)

Yep.

― Drooone, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 02:59 (eighteen years ago)

I quite liked the score, but, as eyeball kicks says, the film can't make up its mind what it wants to be and has some of the worst aspects of both Single White Female, Remains of the Day, and Tony Curtis's films. I didn't like it one bit.

― accentmonkey, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 07:38 (eighteen years ago)

Both? I didn't mean both, obviously, because there are three things in the list.

― accentmonkey, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 07:39 (eighteen years ago)

I liked the score :( ah well... I can barely remember this film. Not a good sign!

― kv_nol, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 08:36 (eighteen years ago)

three years pass...

can barely believe this was nominated for the best screenplay oscar

― post below to show ur support for I love football separatism (cozen), Sunday, 12 September 2010 20:35 (fifteen years ago)

why?

― nakhchivan, Sunday, 12 September 2010 20:43 (fifteen years ago)

six months pass...

this movie! brilliant! so camp... when she buried the picture of her cat, I had to pause it because I couldn't stop laughing. Dench was incredible in this.

― The Brainwasher, Thursday, 24 March 2011 04:45 (fourteen years ago)

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