Notes on a Scandal

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Notes on a Scandal won't be everyone's cup of tea. But if you like your films strong, this one is not to be missed.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

It's a poison bonbon tastier than just about anything else out there.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

The two women -- as well as the always marvelous Bill Nighy as Blanchett's "older" husband -- run roughshod over its third act flaws and, with their exquisitely detailed performances, make it better than it is. It's an actor's triumph.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Oacks more heat, acid, danger and drama into its brief running time than most films of nearly double the length.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The skillful Patrick Marber (Closer) adapted this gripping drama from a novel by Zoe Heller, and it's both literate and urgently plotted, with a voice-over from Dench that cuts like broken glass.

Newsweek David Ansen

A wicked delight. Adapted by playwright Patrick Marber from Zoe Heller's acclaimed novel, it's at once a comedy of cluelessness and class, a melodrama of two women in the grips of wildly inappropriate obsessions, and a "Fatal Attraction"-style thriller.

Variety Justin Chang

The riveting interplay between Dench and Cate Blanchett draws blood with every scene, thanks to a precision-honed script and Eyre's equally incisive direction.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Anyone who loves live-wire acting will gasp in awe at Blanchett, more emotionally exposed than ever, and, most of all, at Dame Judi, who’s so electric she makes you quiver.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

As the relationship between the two British schoolteachers begins (quietly), builds (deceptively) and dissolves (spectacularly), Dench and Blanchett give a master class in acting. Pick your own sports metaphor, but watching them go at each other is the match of the year.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Notes on a Scandal is a nice mug of poisoned eggnog for the holiday season -- a movie so smart and entertaining you almost don't feel its chill sicken your bones.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Dench and Blanchett will likely pick up Oscar nominations; no one could improve on either performance.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Arguably the year's most entertaining art-house film.

Empire Olly Richards

Intelligent, classy and skin-crawling. You won't see a better acting masterclass this year.

The New Yorker David Denby

A wonderfully entertaining movie.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

I can't remember a film that sees the here and now more precisely, one that offers total believability in the tone and motive of its characters and then goes further, showing us a whole and completely recognizable world.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

Notes on a Scandal, brilliantly adapted by Patrick Marber from the darkly comic Zo Heller novel, is a grim piece of work -- "Fatal Attraction" for the art-house crowd, shorn of its predecessor's fearful misogyny.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Taken at face value, these two women are simply despicable. But the screenplay has a bracing tincture of Grand Guignol, and nothing is simple when the two women are played by a couple of superlative actresses who clearly delight in one another.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Notes on a Scandal may be disturbing, but it is a potent and captivating account of misconduct and betrayal.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Leave it to the first-class actors dining out on those roles to make the cat and the mouse interesting and unpredictable.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

If you want to see explosive acting, just watch Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett ignite in this film version of Zoe Heller's 2003 novel.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Though at heart a tightly-wound, bitterly bleak comedy of manners, Eyre's film is less funny than brilliantly squirm-inducing, a dissection of bad behavior via rapier-sharp dialogue.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The best vampire movie I've seen in years.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

We're left with the weakest part of the novel -- the lurching and often melodramatic plot -- plus the chance to see two splendid actors, Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, do the best they can with what they're given (sadly, in Blanchett's case, not much). Okay, no one would call that trade-off a scandal, but it sure ain't much of a bargain.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

What it lacks, though, is any sense that these people - are real.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The most important part of any thriller - even one as upper crust as this - is the resolution, and that's where Notes on a Scandal falls on its face. The ending itself isn't bad but the single act leading to it is unforgivable.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

If the resultant wreckage is a little underwhelming, and the film's coda useless and trite, the getting there is pretty absorbing.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Eyre does a fine job overseeing performances by a terrific cast that rings true until female hysteria takes over the final act. But in tone and theme, the film has all the hallmarks of playwright-screenwriter Marber's stark, uncompromising misanthropy, if not misogyny.

Time Richard Corliss/Richard Schickel

Director Richard Eyre and screenwriter Patrick Marber keep forcing us past disbelief and into the perverse pleasures of nastiness. If nothing else, their film is the perfect antidote to all those warm, forgiving schoolboy dramas we've endured through the years. This corn is not green; it is rotten down to the last kernel.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The actors in Notes on a Scandal are equally distinguished: Ms. Dench and Ms. Blanchett are among the finest on the market today, and each can deliver expert performances, even when, as is the case here, their roles are false and hollow. The performers sell the goods, but the goods are cheap.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Notes on a Scandal isn't humorous or witty enough to sustain black comedy, and it isn't insightful or deep enough to suggest a contemporary tragedy. All it does is put an eloquent veneer on petty meanness.

Slate Dana Stevens

Notes on a Scandal is a wobbly film that never settles on its tone or, perhaps more precisely, its voice. It can't figure out what kind of movie it wants to be: a high-camp melodrama, a realistic psychological portrait of a troubled female friendship, or a vampire-lesbian horror film.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

On a certain level, Notes on a Scandal can be fun viewing, but, odds are, you'll find you won't respect yourself in the morning.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

In bringing Heller's book to the screen, director Richard Eyre ("Iris," "Stage Beauty") and screenwriter Patrick Marber ("Closer") have tossed the book's subtlety out the window, along with its psychological complexity, its running theme of self-deception and its dark, extra-wry sense of humor.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Queasily parked between halfhearted satire and overcooked melodrama, this adaptation of a well-received 2003 novel by British writer Zoë Heller offers the unhappy spectacle of a raft of acting talent trying to do right by slimy material.

Film Threat Phil Hall

Sadly, the whole affair is little more than ennui with a pedigree.