‘Scoop’ review: Prince Andrew interview movie is a royal bore
Journalism movies can be a lot of fun (“His Girl Friday,” “The Paper”) or compellingly dramatic (“Spotlight”).
movie review
SCOOP
Running time: 102 minutes. Rated TV-14. On Netflix April 5.
Or neither.
That murky middle is seen in “Scoop,” a dollar store “Frost/Nixon” about Prince Andrew’s 2019 interview with the BBC in the wake of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking scandal.
Director Philip Martin’s film is not poorly made per se, but its efforts to make the behind-the-scenes scramble to get the Duke of York on TV exciting are for naught.
The biggest hurdle, as far as entertainment is concerned, is that this really is a Goliath-vs.-Goliath story. The movie tries ever so hard to frame the BBC — the world’s largest broadcaster — as some sort of scrappy startup. Too bad the viewer knows that neither “B” stands for blog.
Sure there have been layoffs at the company, and the current affairs program “Newsnight” is trying to up the ante with eye-grabbing stories. Producer Sam McAlister is worried she’ll lose her job.
Yet because of their still-significant resources, we don’t root for McAlister (Billie Piper), anchor Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) and editor Esme Wren (Romola Garai) so much as admire their professional abilities. They deserve awards for journalism, not a two-hour fictionalization.
The leading role here is McAlister, who has a tabloid sensibility that her colleagues sneer at. Nonetheless, she adamantly insists the show keep an eye on suspicious friends Epstein and the Duke of York.
After Epstein’s arrest and later suicide in prison, they doggedly pursue an interview. McAlister goes for cocktails with the prince’s aide Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), who will only consider the proposal if Maitlis’ questions will stick to Andrew’s young entrepreneur program “Pitch the Palace” and not bring up the pedophile or his nefarious friend Ghislaine Maxwell.
Hawes, throughout, has the worn-down look of feigned support — like that of a politician’s spurned spouse as her husband admits to an affair onstage.
Believing a sit-down could turn Andrew’s reputation around, Thirsk and the palace finally agree. Whoops!
“Scoop” thankfully perks up when Maitlis and Andrew face off for the tense, disastrous chat.
To play Andrew, Sewell has been, well, enhanced with the help of prosthetics and makeup that reportedly took as long as four hours to apply. He plays the royal with the right combo of overconfidence and bumbling oafishness.
Across from him, Anderson’s shrewd Maitlis is the opposite. Focused and steady, she grills the prince like only Agent Scully could — with brutal logic and confounding charm.
When the interview hits screens across the globe, and the response is resoundingly anti-Andrew, it’s supposed to be a triumphant finale.
But because Prince Andrew never faced criminal charges (he settled a civil suit with Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexual assault), it’s not a blistering end.
McAlister orders a kebab, and the next movie in your Netflix queue begins — like it or not.
