Movies about reporters have been a cinema staple ever since talkies emerged.
Early classics leaned toward comedy, most famously with 1931’s The Front Page and 1940’s His Girl Friday (actually a gender-switched remake of the former). Following World War II, the genre focused more on social issues, with notable examples that included 1947’s Gentleman’s Agreement, 1948’s Call Northside 777 and 1951’s Ace in the Hole.
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| Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell), naively believing that his "royal bearing" will win the day, hasn't the faintest notion how his oblivious behavior will come across on camera, when interviewed by BBC journalist Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) |
Recent classics similarly ripped from actual events include 1999’s The Insider, 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck, and 2015’s Spotlight. They remind us of the crucially important role played by the Fourth Estate in a democracy, at a time when honest journalism — in print or on television — is in a death spiral, and an increasing number of corrupt individuals exclude truth-tellers and speak solely to “friendly” reporters.
Bloggers don’t break stories or create news; they merely repeat it.
All of which brings us to Scoop, adapted from a chapter in Samantha McAlister’s 2022 memoir about her most (in)famous journalistic “gets”: in this case, the events that led to the 2019 BBC television interview that brought down Prince Andrew.
As was the case with All the President’s Men — which captivated naysayers who initially scoffed at the notion of investigative journalism being interesting — director Philip Martin’s well-paced handling of these events is fascinating. He gets a significant boost from the sharp script by Geoff Bussetil and Peter Moffat — the latter a veteran of crime-oriented British TV shows such as Criminal Justice and Silk — and a terrific cast.
The story begins in 2010, with a suspenseful prologue that finds tabloid photographer Jae Donnelly (Connor Swindells, excellent in this brief role) finally getting the photo — on December 5 — that showed Prince Andrew strolling amicably through New York’s Central Park with his good friend Jeffery Epstein.
That picture would haunt Prince Andrew for almost a decade, as he tried to distance himself from the slowly widening sex scandal that embroiled Epstein and his equally complicit partner, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Martin and his writers then move events to 2019, as staff members of the BBC current events program Newsnight listen with dread when massive layoffs are announced. Emotions are high, prompting an uncomfortable exchange between “booker” Sam McAlister (Billie Piper), producer Esme Wren (Romola Garai) and on-air interviewer Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson).
