In "Notes on a Scandal," Ms. Covett -- the great actress Judi Dench in a knotted, embittered rage almost throughout -- is a salty old pro teaching at an English middle school, and she noted poor Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), the new art teacher, back when she came to the young teacher's rescue as misbehavior threatened to turn her class into anarchy. (See In Focus on Page 31.) Covett and Hart? Is that touch perhaps a little precious? In any event, Ms. Covett, iron of spirit as well as of petticoat, stops that outbreak with a few steely words, then takes the younger teacher under her wing.

We watch what we think will unspool as a touching story of human weakness as told from a sympathetic viewpoint (Hart is indicted for allegedly having sexual relations with a male student), but we soon realize that cheesy uplift is not on the menu. No, indeed. All life, the film argues, is political, in that it progresses from each according to his desires to that same each according to his power. And Ms. Covett has an agenda; she's not even honest with herself, much less us, about that truth, but she wants something from the young, somewhat disorganized beauty. In the narrative sense, Ms. Covett turns out to be that favorite of old-fashioned mystery-dame specialties, the unreliable witness, who is hiding as much as she is revealing.

One thing that marks the dark brilliance of "Notes on a Scandal," directed by Richard Eyre, is the level of the acting, but that is just part of a larger issue: its vision. 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.

--Stephen Hunter (Dec. 27, 2006)

Contains sexual content and profanity.