Cate Blanchett: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

3. Sheba Hart €“ Notes On A Scandal (2006)

Patrick Marber, the new Shakespeare and writer of stilted sex drama Closer, adapted Zoë Heller's best-selling psychological drama for the screen. The scandalous premise is what first draws attention to the film €“ Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) is a history teacher who enters into an affair with a fifteen-year-old student, and is subsequently blackmailed by a colleague (Judi Dench). But it's the character drama, rather than the movement of the plot, that makes Notes On A Scandal such a great film. Dench's retirement-age spinster Barbara Covett is not just threatening to tell all about Sheba's transgression for the fun of it, but because she has her own attraction to the younger woman, setting up a uniquely dark love triangle. Blanchett as Sheba is the triumph, of course, with the actor not only managing to dress down to a dowdy teacher but convincingly put together a sympathetic performance as a paedophile. The panic and terror as she tries desperately to cover her tracks and avoid the advances of Dench's character are brilliantly wrought and never tumble into TV movie histrionics, as the premise so closely flirts with.