You know who is really taking our jobs? The British. They can play characters from every country, including the US, and they mass produce good actors like bunnies. What happens when you cast Judi Dench as the lead and Cate Blanchett as the supporting actress? A riveting performance of an amazing and uncomfortable adaptation of the novel, Notes on a Scandal. There is a cycle of exploitation and inappropriate, furtive agendas held by people who betray themselves as much as the person they allegedly care about and abuse as characters preemptively scorn those whom they fear will reject them because they should be rejected. It is heartbreaking and awful. Notes on a Scandal is a horror movie with no physical violence, just psychological. The characters somehow are sympathetic and cringe inducing at the same time. Bill Nighy always brings something amazing. The barely adult teenager, Andrew Simpson, convincingly plays opposite Cate Blanchett as her student. Even though I applaud the movie for pushing the envelope, I feel like they held back slightly by blaming both Dench and Blanchett’s behavior on loneliness. Dench isn’t just some lonely spinster suppressing her lesbian desires. She is a stalker, who probably is a lesbian and happens to be a spinster. Also Notes on a Scandal trots out the tired trope that when an underage boy has sex with his teacher, it isn’t harmful to him. These plot points did not stop me from enjoying the movie, but it did diminish my estimation of it.