After the exhibition, we still had a few hours to kill before Jarrod's birthday do, and though I hadn't been particularly interested in seeing it, Notes on a Scandal was the film that best fit both timings and interest levels (we really wanted to see Dreamgirls but sadly it wasn't screening any more); anyway, it was actually very good. It's a film that really depends on the performances of its leads, Dench and Blanchett, and both are quite magnificent - totally believable and (hoary old cliche) fully inhabiting their characters.
The affective nature of this film is difficult to pin down in some ways - it keeps the viewer somehow at a slight distance, and I couldn't work out afterwards why I'd had that impression. Some of it may've had to do with the ever-cyclic Glass score, which runs through virtually the whole of the film's running time (if not actually the whole of it), and it also made sense when I read later that the screenwriter had also done Closer, a film with which it has a fair bit in common (and more and more in common, the more I think about it). It's very funny in spots, too. I probably wouldn't watch it again, but I'm glad to've caught it.
