Notes on a Scandal

2006
R
1h 32m

IMDb RATING

7.4/10

86K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

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Dark Romance Crime Drama Romance Thriller

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

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.4/10

86K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

3,615

963

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 4 Oscars
- 16 wins & 74 nominations total

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Juno Temple's first major role and her first audition. When she first told her parents she wanted to be an actress, they tried to talk her out of it saying "You can't just step into this and be good. You will have to work and you will have to fight for it." Her mom sent her to an open audition for this film to show her how much competition she'd have. But then Temple got hired. She got hired again a year later on her very next audition for Atonement (2007). At that point, her mom said, "Fucking hell, well, surely it goes downhill after this?" It didn't. She ended up being cast in films and on TV almost every year.

Goofs
When Sheba is rampaging through Barbara's house in search of her journal, you can see a crew member in the mirror behind her as she goes to sit.

Quotes
Barbara Covett: People like Sheba think they know what it is to be lonely. But of the drip, drip of the long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing. What it's like to construct an entire weekend around a visit to the launderette. Or to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus conductor's hand sends a jolt of longing straight to your groin. Of this, Sheba and her like have no clue.

Connections
Featured in Siskel & Ebert: The Best Films of 2006 (2006)

Soundtracks
Funky Kingston
Written by Toots Hibbert (as Frederick Hibbert)
Performed by Toots & The Maytals (as Toots and the Maytals)
Produced by Leslie Kong
Reproduced by kind permission of Blue Mountain Music Ltd.
Administered by Fairwood Music (UK) Ltd. (c) 1971
Courtesy of Universal-Island Records Ltd.
Under licence from Universal Music Operations Ltd.
Courtesy of D&F Music Frederick Hibbert

User reviews320

Review

Featured review

7/10

Jarring Notes Superbly Performed

Judi Dench and Cate Blanchet both have played the fierce Queen Elizabeth I in their careers and here they fight for the crown in a royal match that is as entertaining as it is jarring. Two civilized women breaking into very uncivilized patterns of behavior. A highbrow story with a tabloid sensibility performed with truth and gusto. Bette Davis would have killed for Judi Dench's part at the time of Baby Jane and although there is nothing grotesque in the way Dame Judy presents us her monster, the monster herself is grotesque. She explains, in a witty and consistent voice over, what's in her mind. The center of her intentions become so appallingly clear to us that Cate Blanchet's slowness to catch up becomes exasperating. Maybe her suffocating domestic situation throws her into the arms of her absurdity. She seems a woman searching for validation without any real vocation. A teacher who doesn't believe she can teach, a mediocre wife a light weight mother. Judi Dench is relentlessly solid in her madness made of longing and fears. I left the theater with a desperate need for a double scotch on the rocks, just to take a strange taste off my mouth.