Notes on a Scandal (2006) on Netflix

Plot summary

Barbara Covett teaches history at a comprehensive school in London, where students and colleagues alike keep their distance, and she has little use for them either. Nearing retirement and never married, she lives alone with her cat Portia and confides in her diary. When Sheba Hart joins the staff as an art teacher, Barbara is drawn to her and the two strike up a friendship. Sheba is married to Richard, a former professor about twenty years her senior, and cares for their two children, teenage Polly and Ben, who has Down's Syndrome. Barbara helps Sheba through a difficult situation with two students, and Sheba invites her to lunch with the family. Barbara's feelings run deeper than friendship. Sheba, meanwhile, has begun an affair with Steven Connolly, a fifteen-year-old student.