Emotional journeys
Love, lies and lust in Islington, plus a mellowing of Mr Bean
Notes on a Scandal ****
Director Richard Eyre
Starring Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Andrew Simpson, Bill Nighy
UK (2006) 91 mins
Mr. Bean’s Holiday ** (**** for kids)
Director Steve Bendelack
Starring Emma de Caunes, Max Baldry, Rowan Atkinson, Willem Dafoe
UK (2007) 89 mins
Based on Zo? Heller’s Booker-nominated novel, Notes On A Scandal is brilliantly scripted by Patrick Marber, who also wrote the excellent Closer. Forget love triangles, this is a love square: the callous youth, the beautiful princess, the wicked witch and the wise old man. It could be a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Set in a north London comprehensive school, the story follows the arrival of luminously beautiful art teacher Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), who brings the magic of her alluring, easy charm to the staff room. Like a lamb to the slaughter, all desire her but she is particularly targeted by one of her pupils, Steven, and the obsessive, acerbic history mistress, a frustrated spinster played by Judi Dench.
Hart, full of unexpressed cravings, embarks on an affair with Steven and is emotionally blackmailed by history teacher Miss Covett who discovers the secret in a chilling scene of voyeurism as Blanchett performs oral sex on her young lover.
Underpinning the story is Bill Nighy who puts in an excellent performance as well (as Hart’s husband), the cuckolded older man who is left supporting the family, which includes a Downs Syndrome child, while his young, bohemian wife discovers her lost youth.
In any other year, Dench might have won an Oscar for her chilling performance of the lonely, manipulative spinster who befriends young women in an attempt to find her soulmate and meticulously records her days in notebooks.
This is a story about the folly of love: the madness induced when reason flies out of the window and the object of one’s desire becomes the centre of an obsessive world. Age, youth and class are all carefully explored and entwined. As Blanchett’s behaviour leads into a labyrinth of lies, as she remains hell-bent on maintaining her illegal love affair, we see how merging fantasy and reality create fools of us all. Why the appropriately named Bathsheba Hart is so obsessed with her young beau is never fully explained but the film painfully explores the conceits of love and the horror that follows when rose-tinted glasses crack and the truth revealed.
This is a very English film, beautifully observed and directed by Richard Eyre, every detail perfect: even down to the boho Sheba’s love of Laphraoig. Dench, now in her 70s, is mesmerising on screen and utterly convincing. Every slight raised eyebrow and inflection of her voice is a testimony to her talent. The strength of the film lies in its ability to create empathy with characters that are blatantly flawed. They are selfish, indulgent and vindictive. We don’t like them, we don’t like what they do, but we recognise them, and that is very frightening indeed.
Mellowing with age though and growing more likeable in the process is Mr Bean, although kids will probably enjoy his latest outing, Mr Bean’s Holiday, more than adults. The dark side of Mr. Bean of the early days is absent as he has, like his creator, Rowan Atkinson, mellowed with age. Atkinson commented that he always thought of Bean as a person to dislike, but this dysfunctional adult turns in a touching performance that many will hate although the seven-year-olds at the multiplex loved it.
Atkinson, with his collaborator Richard Curtis, doesn’t use scripts, the situational slapstick comes first, the structure follows and the film consequently has the sense of sketches joined together, running gags and improvisation.
Atkinson says as teenager he was heavily influenced by Jacques Tati’s Les Vacancies de Monsieur Hulot and one is aware that there is a sentimental journey being enacted on the screen at many levels. The film follows Mr. Bean’s trip to Cannes during the film festival. He, of course, is oblivious to the glamour and is beset by obstacles in his path as he is determined to roll up his trousers and dip his toes in the Med. On his way he accidentally falls protector to a feisty young boy who can give as good as he gets, played with spirit, by Max Baldry.
I liked the film, it was slow in places, but the sub plot of the ego tripping film director, a gem of a cameo by Daniel Dafoe, gave it some bite and the French countryside, as always, is phenomenally photogenic. The love interest arrives in the form of small, yellow mini with familiar gags from the series.
But where was Teddy? I can only imagine he was left in the lost suitcase. Francophiles in the audience will enjoy some of the jokes at the les rosbeefs expense, the recommendation by the ultra formal Parisian waiter of the most expensive dish of the day rings a particular chord.
It may well be the final appearance of Mr. Bean. If so, it was a loveable one, times have moved on, some characters must be laid to rest. Atkinson is a clown of consummate skill, like watching a throwback to the days of the silent screen, it’s not a great farewell but it’s an affectionate one. Grab an uncynical seven-year-old, go without high expectations and say au revoir. RIP Bean.
