Richard Eyre‘s Notes on a Scandal (Fox Searchlight, 12.27) has done well enough by me, and it’s gotten a 79% Rotten Tomatoes positive and a 75% rating from Metacritic. But what’s really intriguing, I feel, is that at least one critic — the Hollywood Reporter‘s Kirk Honeycutt — thinks it’s misogynist (as does a columnist I know), and another — N.Y. Times‘ Manohla Dargis — feels it’s misanthropic. Good…this adds a certain something.
“Is this Judi’s film or Cate’s, Barbara’s or Sheba’s?” Dargis writes. “Barbara inspires shudders and may be off her rocker; Sheba is totally hot but also a sexual predator and, it emerges, rather stupid. Judi looks a fright, but that works to her actorly advantage as much as her marvelous enunciation. Cate slinks around, soaking up male and female attention with confidence. Of course both characters are utterly despicable, as is the story that invites us into its trap just to prove that we all have our self-serving reasons, including the filmmakers.”