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"Notes on a scandal" - movie review


“People have always trusted me with their secrets, but who do I trust mine with?” the old lady writes in her diary. She is the history teacher (played by Judi Dench). The movie’s background score and the general atmosphere are quite similar to “The Hours”-one of my favourite movies of all time. There is a sense of drama that awaits us, as indicated by the title and pouncing yet sublime background score. There is something in the opening scenes that points towards a tale that strangles you with its intensity. The arts teacher (played by Cate Blanchett) is new to the school, and I am already liking her. If not as powerful a character played by Nicole Kidman for Virginia Woolf in “The Hours”, Blanchett’s role is similarly intense, formidable and deep.

Ah! The background score is enticing. “One must make an effort, when one receives an invitation” the voiceover of history teacher in response to the arts teacher’s invitation for lunch at her place, the movie hides the scathing arguments for a later time. As of now, what we see is mere colloquial over coffee or lunch, but the background score sprays its urgency over every scene so much so that you begin to think if it is an action movie after all.

The old lady falls in love with the young one, she likes her “utter candidness” and thinks of her as “a companion”. In fact, Cate Blanchett is so befitting in the role that one wonders how anyone could resist but be besotted for her. She is shown as a mother of two, but awfully beautiful for her age and extremely adorable.

The older one saves the younger’s affair with a school kid for a future purpose which she anticipates would be lot more fruitful to her than the present benefit of ostracising her. The older lady deeply awed as she is for the younger one’s affairs, is also infatuated with her and feels an investment of love, a chasm of strength and relationship. “we are bound by the secrets we share”, the voiceover clarifies when the younger is shown exhausted lying by the side of her student on a decrepit and rusty old railway platform. The younger feels drawn towards her student despite the conscience that forbade her, mother in her that dissuaded her, wife in her that reprimanded her, a teacher in her that censured her and held her culpable of a heinous (yet delightful) action.

The movie tells a tale of love between the older and the younger ladies, with the older dreamily involved with the younger while the younger is confused and absently walks into a relationship – ones she would later regret, and the ones that she would later renounce.

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