Notes on lost women
"The main characters in this film are complicated, contradictory, full of problems and, in some ways, unpleasant, so we wanted, we hoped that the actresses would make audiences like them": Patrick Marber, the screenwriter of Notes on a Scandal [+see also:
trailer
film profile], thus relates the beginnings of a film that adds obsession to the burning and very current issues of "scandalous" relationships between teachers and students, maintaining, however, comic tones.
Based on Zoe Heller’s best-selling novel What Was She Thinking, Richard Eyre’s film depicts the birth and end of a friendship between Barbara (Judy Dench), a lonely and bitter teacher, and Sheba (Cate Blanchett), the new art teacher in a small-town school.
Barbara’s discovery of Sheba’s relationship with a 15 year-old pupil seems to be the key for emotional blackmail, which Barbara faithfully notes down in her diary, but her demands quickly become so pressing as to lead, inevitably, to a catastrophe.
Released on 350 screens in the UK by 20th Century Fox, and nominated for four Oscars (including Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress), Notes on a Scandal was presented out of competition at the Berlinale.
The film is a co-production between Scott Rudin Productions (US) and the UK’s DNA Films and BBC Films, with support from the UK Film Council.
International sales are being handled by US outfit Fox Searchlight Pictures
(Translated from Italian)
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