notes on a scandal

notes on a scandal is a delight. this film was adapted for the screen by patrick marber (writer of closer) from zoe heller’s novel. we view the film from barbara (judi dench)’s point of view with her voice-over, which is taken from the diaries she keeps throughout the film. barbara is a history teacher one year away from retirement when sheba (cate blanchett) starts working as an art teacher at the school. barbara quickly takes a liking to sheba, which we discover is more like an obsession; and not the first of its kind. the two women become friends and sheba invites barbara to her home frequently as well as other social gatherings. for about the first half of the film, we are aligned with barbara and therefore find out along with her that sheba has been pursued by one of her 15-year old male students and they have developed a sexual relationship. instead of turning sheba in, barbara agrees to keep the secret if she ends the relationship. i don’t want to give away much more of the plot because this film is fun to discover. essentially, barbara believes that sheba wants out of her marriage to her older husband and away from her two children and sees this as her way to win sheba for herself. what i found most interesting was the way the film dealt with predatory sexuality in more than just the illegal relationship sheba has with her student. this relationship is the most obvious example of predatory sexuality, but sheba is a participant in three separate relations with people who are significantly older or younger than she is. first, sheba’s husband, richard (bill nighy) is visibly older than sheba and we learn that he is a professor, this is his second marriage and that he met sheba when she was twenty and one of his students. and I think it’s assumed that he left his first wife for sheba when he was about twice her age. second, barbara is significantly older than sheba and while her interest in her is somewhat ambiguous, we are to assume she is hoping for a more intimate relationship. and thirdly, sheba’s sexual relationship with steven, her student, who is only a teenager. a story about a teacher engaging in relationships with students is something we hear about frequently in the news, yet i believe this film takes a different approach to its judgment of sheba for this act. we all have our own morals surrounding the appropriate differences (age, race, gender, etc) involved in sexual relations, and this film does not steer us towards any particular judgments. the way in which the film situates sheba as the common person in all three relationships seems to suggest that if we are quick to judge any one of the relationships as immoral, we should consider how similar all three are. there is a scene between sheba and her husband that i think best articulates this notion. once he has found out about her affair with steven, he asks her if she thinks she’s the only person who’s ever wanted someone younger, and references his own attraction to her. they discuss how she was only twenty when they met and how steven is almost sixteen now, and the fact that they are both student/teacher relationships. i didn’t view sheba as a pedophile (and i don’t think the film wants you to see her that way either), but more as a woman who ended up in a situation that quickly escalated beyond the point that it could be considered innocent. in the same way that it would be an oversimplification to label sheba a pedophile, we cannot just call barbara a lesbian with an unrequited crush. she never once refers to herself as a lesbian (even when her sister and other family members suggest it) and frames her desired relationship with sheba as a friendship. i never got the impression that barbara had even been a part of any lesbian relationships in the past; only a series of obsessions with women she couldn’t have. i think it is barbara’s deluded perspective and manipulative actions that we are meant to view as inappropriate in this film. i am impressed with the way notes on a scandal handles this topical subject matter from an open-minded perspective and without any arbitrary oprah-like judgments.

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