Ripped from the headlines story of a pretty blond schoolteacher having sex with a fifteen year old student. Sort of. The real story is about the old woman who lusts for a new friend, but we are never really sure what kind of a friend it is she lusting for. Judi Dench is the slightly mad, or totally mad, teacher who is near retirement age and doesn’t want to die alone. Cate Blanchett is the object of her desire, as well as the desire of the fifteen year old stud muffin. Nothing good comes from all this lusting.
It is a dark film with a lot of harsh lighting and Judi Dench looking as unattractive as I have ever seen her. There were several times when I thought this movie was going to turn really dark, but it didn’t. Our slightly mad old teacher is never declared to be gay, or crazy, or a killer, or much of anything but a sad and lonely old woman willing to do anything to have someone to take of. There is a lot of voice, in which she tends to takes things beyond their face value, but don’t we all hear what we want to hear?
In the end Cate goes to jail for cheating on her husband with a minor and Judi is left to search for someone else to keep her company.
It was a downer of a film about desperate people leading quietly desperate lives. The best I can say about it was it didn’t have any CGI monsters running around blowing things up.
