Notes on a Scandal

Even if this movie had been thoroughly bad, I would have been guaranteed to love it. Just one of those movies that seem to be tailor-made for me: I could easily fall prey to a Barbara Covett in fifteen years or become her myself in thirty; from my vantage point now it is delicious fun to witness the disastrous fallout. Nevermind the inappropriate sex with the pubescent boy; that is merely the catalyst to a story about two women, to a story about lesbian vampirism. Right up my alley.

It takes a funny-campy book and turns it into serious camp — well, it is careful to toe the line of realism, and strikes just the right balance. The performances are highly wrought to be sure, but they are fine nonetheless. Glass’ score too is unnecessarily prominent and intense and Marber’s screenplay is wordy and mannered as ever, but it all works. The book was vaguely creepy but full of comic relief. The film is saturated with the sinister, much more intense; one laughs, but in appreciation of what is dangerously bitchy and not merely catty. One laughs, because though we know she’s a bit mad and we’re not really rooting for her, her malevolent view on the world is too delightful to dismiss.

I loved it more than it deserves, but would have done despite any number of flaws. As it is actually very, very good, it becomes my #2 of the year…

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