JUDI DENCH IN NOTES ON A SCANDAL (2006)
Judi Dench is probably the least likely great actress to play a stalker. The dame's a Dame, for queen's sakes! Yet in Notes on a Scandal — a kind of same-sex Fatal Attraction imagined by Jane Austen in a really foul mood — the Oscar winning legend turned in an Oscar-nominated performance as a lonely British schoolmarm who learns that a pretty young fellow teacher (an Oscar-nominated Cate Blanchette) has been sleeping with a student, and then cunningly leverages that info to turn the woman into her one and only friend. Dench's femme fatale is deliciously fiendish and heartbreakingly poignant — a truly classy creep. —Jeff Jensen
Add your comment
The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. An asterisk * indicates a required field.