I can't think of anything I'd rather do less than watch The Hobbit. Haven't we put Peter Jackson's six-hour Crayola still-lifes behind us yet? These movies look like Lisa Frank folders come to life, and if Peter's not going to include magenta unicorns and rainbow clouds in his adventures, he doesn't care about anyone having a good time.
Meanwhile his star Cate Blanchett, which is Latin for "cheekbones of corundum," is a damn treasure. I want her in everything: movies, TV shows, flash mobs, yo' face, etc. And if I'm going to spend my holiday season with Cate Blanchett, I'm going to do it via Notes on a Scandal, the perfect camp trifle. Do you like illicit affairs, scheming lesbians, and bastardly quotes? Then you should really read up on Lillian Hellman. Oh, and watch this week's Best. Movie. Ever! selection.
Here are five dandy reasons Notes on a Scandal may be the beeeest mooooviee eveeeeer.
1. Does Judi Dench work for Ray-Ban? Because she has a monopoly on shade.
It goes like this: Barbara (Judi Dench) is a veteran teacher and legendary spinster at an English school. She befriends a new teacher named Sheba (Blanchett), which is short for Bathsheba, which certainly isn't symbolic. Sheba is stuck in an unfulfilling marriage with two mediocre kids, and for some reason she confides this in Scowl Empress Barbara. Good. Lo and behold, Barbara discovers that Sheba is having an affair with a 15-year-old student, and rather than tell on her, she pledges to keep the secret -- as long as Sheba complies to her seemingly friendly demands, which grow weirder and kookier as the movie goes on. Oh, Sheba. You charming idiot.
Before the movie spins into delirium, Barbara narrates the story and unleashes fun quotes about everyone in sight. Of Sheba: "Is she a sphinx or is she simply stupid?" Of Sheba's family: "They do things differently in [their] bourgeois bohemia." Of her school's students: "In the old days we confiscated cigarettes and wank mags. Now it's knives and crack cocaine. And they call it progress."
It didn't hit me until re-watching Notes on a Scandal that Judi Dench is rarely this snooty on film anymore. So each bitchy quote here is a charm, a Werther's Original to tickle your blackest thatch of soul. When she calls Sheba's Down Syndrome-affected son "a somewhat tiresome court jester," I personally abandoned all decorum, choked on my howls of laughter, and fell through the floor into the sky.
2. Cate cannot. Stop. Messing up.
You hate to see a character so helpless. Or do you? I'm kidding. I love watching Sheba stumble into an affair with a juvenile delinquent. I know it's pedophilia and that's repulsive, but so is being stupid. Barbara merely has to peek in a window on campus to discover Sheba's transgressions. Come on, Sheba. Take that shit to a handicapped stall at Barnes & Noble.
Cate's personal Vili Fualaau, this brooding chap, does a pretty good job in a supporting role. But you can tell by the layers of hoodie and Benicio del Toro undertones that he's bad news. Sheba! You fool! Never date someone whose favorite movie is definitely Green Street Hooligans.
3. Nothing warms the soul like slowly revealed crazy.
At some point our narrator Barbara begins to disclose that her intentions aren't all awesome. Maybe she wants to build a confidential relationship with Sheba for weird reasons? Lurid reasons? Oh, hell, let's go there: She is a raving lesbian psychopath in the Aileen Wuornos mold and wants to capture Sheba as a delicate butterscotch sex prize. Who can blame her? Teaching is awful. I rather love her monologue about how Sheba can't possibly understand how lonely she is: "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 laundrette. 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."
To be fair, the world could use more bus conductor-themed pornography. Maybe Barbara is simply pointing out a gap in the Xtube community. I've decided she's a crusader.
4. Sheba's family refuses to be as dumb as Sheba.
Two amazing things happen suddenly in Notes on a Scandal: 1) Sheba's family realizes that Barbara is a hat full of crazy and they shout insults at her face. 2) Barbara shamelessly withstands their insults and pries at Sheba for exclusive attention. Call me Streisand in '87, because this is Nuts.
When Sheba and her family are trying to drive to her son's play, her daughter spots Barbara on the street and snaps, "Oh, God, look" as if a hippo from Jumanji were coming at them. Barbara starts crowing that her cat died, and Sheba's husband (Bill Nighy, in a thankless role), yells, "My condolences. Poor, poor pussy!" And later, in one of the most sublime deliveries of an insult I've ever seen on film, Sheba's daughter yelps at Barbara, "Oh, Jesus wept. Specter at the feast." AHHHHHHHH. Get Dante on the phone, because that's nine layers of fire.
Most real-life kids aren't awesome, though, so this part is also a reminder of the shambles that is youth.
5. The only fight sequence you ever needed.
Finally, the rising (one-sided lesbian sexual) tension between Sheba and Barbara culminates in a sequence that you should really just see. I've embedded a grainy version below, but just skip my following squeeing and click if you haven't watched already.
I DIE when Sheba declares, "No one told me you were a f*cking vampire!" It reminds me of my favorite tabloid story of all time, when Marianne Faithfull called Kate Moss a style thief and also -- ahem -- "a clever vampire." Ahahahaha, clever vampires. Surely Barbara is the trickiest Transylvanian we know.
The film's two most immortal moments (besides all the vampire-ing) are well after Barbara vindictively tells Sheba's secret to another faculty member. Describing her deed, Barbara deadpans, "Judas had the grace to hang himself, but only according to Matthew, the most sentimental of the Apostles." HA. Matthew is totally the wimpiest. The other moment is during the big blowout, when Barbara tries one last time to claim Sheba as her eternal lover, screaming, "You don't belong in the world! You belong here, you big baby!" Sigh. Just like Tristan and Isolde, these two.
Is Notes on a Scandal one of your favorite camp classics of the past decade? If not, why not? You're not that clever a vampire.
