Scoop: Fascinating, fact-based depiction of a journalistic coup

Scoop (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated TV-14, for dramatic intensity, sexual candor and occasional profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.3.24

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.

 

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)

But it took 1976’s All the President’s Men to bring the genre into crucially important territory, with its depiction of dogged real-world investigative reporters determined to speak truth to power, and warn ordinary people about the monsters hidden in plain sight.

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).

Rebecca: A rather pointless remake

Rebecca (2020) • View trailer

Three stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, fleeting nudity and dramatic intensity

By Derrick Bang 

Just as every generation gets its own version of The Three Musketeers, we seem destined to get a fresh take on Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca every few decades.

 

The new Mrs. de Winter (Lily James, seated), wholly unfamiliar with her new aristocratic
surroundings, is easy prey for the waspish, scheming housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers
(Kristin Scott Thomas).

It’s hard to top Alfred Hitchcock’s first crack at the novel, back in 1940. For my money, it’s the only adaptation that looks right, thanks to George Barnes ominously moody monochromatic cinematography (which won a well-deserved Academy Award). This is a truly gothic tale; it requires black-and-white cinematography, to highlight all the dark corners and foreboding shadows of one of literature’s most infamous estates.

 

No fewer than six television adaptations followed, the most notable arriving via PBS; in 1979, on Mystery, and in 1997, on Masterpiece Theatre. Although both are excellent, with terrific casts, they’re too “pretty,” thanks to the color cinematography.

 

The same is true of this newest adaptation, which arrives as a Netflix original. The cast is strong, with excellent performances from Lily James, Kristin Scott Thomas and Armie Hammer. But Laurie Rose’s opulent cinematography once again is too lush; his outdoor vistas — particularly a breathtaking establishing shot of a beach, from a vantage point out in the ocean — have the striking, painterly quality of a postcard.

 

This would be fine, if Rose supplied sufficient contrast with the mansion’s many interior sequences. But he doesn’t; nor does director Ben Wheatley seem sufficiently interested in adhering to the story’s gothic atmosphere. He and his scripters — Jane Goldman, Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse — fail to understand that the Manderley estate is as much a character as its inhabitants.

 

That said, this film is true to the story’s 1930s setting, which is equally essential. 

 

Following a fleeting prologue, during which James gives us the novel’s famous opening line — “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again” — the story emerges as a lengthy flashback.

 

She stars as a young woman — never granted a name — introduced as a “paid companion” to the insufferably condescending Mrs. Van Hopper (Ann Dowd). They’re vacationing in Monte Carlo; the young woman is reminded constantly of her lower social status by her mean-spirited patron, who spends considerable time sharing gossip with equally vacuous female aristocrats.