‘Scoop’ – Review

CinemaBlind’s Review – 65%

Scoop is a well-made but hard-to-watch film, believe me that’s a good thing. The Netflix film does everything right from its pacing to its performances giving us an insight into the subject and people behind one of the most scandalous things ever to come out of the British Royal family.

Directed by Philip Martin, Scoop sheds some light on what went on behind the scenes of Prince Andrew‘s News Night interview with Emily Maitlis which was later described as less a car crash than “a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion.” Prince Andrew was a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein and was also accused of molesting an underage girl, but he is still walking freely.

Scoop has everything working for it including its main cast who give us convincing performances including Rufus Sewel who was completely unrecognizable under all the prosthetics for his role of Prince Andrew. The film is shown through the women working on BBC’s Newsnight who secured and did the interview, Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) and Sam McAlister (Billie Piper). Anderson and Piper put forth incredible performances but the performance in the film that will surprise you is from Keeley Hawes who plays the role of Amanda Thirsk, Prince Andrew’s long-time personal assistant and confidante.

While Peter Moffat has done an incredible job of adapting Sam McAllister‘s Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews, we only see the main story of what happened before or during the interview but it falls short when it comes to its character building. The film wants us to feel for these women but they don’t show us anything about them besides Piper’s Sam McAlister whose personal life is given a little screen time but even that’s not enough. Which makes the end product feel a bit rushed and not enough fleshed out.

So, in the end, if you want to watch how one of the biggest scandals in the British royal Family’s history came to be you should check out the film but don’t expect something groundbreaking or extremely intense like Spotlight and Forst/Nixon.