| Scoop | |
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Promotional poster |
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| Directed by | Woody Allen |
| Produced by | Letty Aronson Gareth Wiley |
| Written by | Woody Allen |
| Starring | Scarlett Johansson Hugh Jackman Woody Allen Ian McShane |
| Cinematography | Remi Adefarasin |
| Editing by | Alisa Lepselter |
| Studio | BBC Films Ingenious Film Partners |
| Distributed by | Focus Features |
| Release date(s) | July 28, 2006 |
| Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$4 million |
| Box office | US$39,215,642 |
Scoop is a 2006 American-British romantic comedy/murder mystery written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, Ian McShane, and Allen himself. Focus Features released the film.
Contents |
Following the memorial service for irrepressible investigative reporter Joe Strombel (McShane), Strombel's spirit finds himself on the barge of death with several others, including a young woman who believes she was poisoned by her employer, Peter Lyman (Jackman). The woman tells Strombel she thinks Lyman, a handsome British aristocrat with political ambitions, may be the Tarot Card Killer, a notorious serial killer of prostitutes, and that he killed her when she stumbled onto his secret. The Tarot Card Killer left a card on each dead body after each murder.
Sondra Pransky (Johansson) is a beautiful but somewhat awkward American college journalism student on vacation in London. Pransky attends a performance given by magician Sid Waterman (Allen), aka "The Great Splendini," and agrees to participate on the stage. While in a booth known as The Dematerializer, Pransky encounters Strombel's ghost. The ghost has escaped the Grim Reaper himself to impart his suspicions of Lyman to a journalist who can investigate the story (a scene influenced by one from Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, in which a stage musician about to be exposed as a fraud performs actual magic). Sondra decides to infiltrate Lyman's privileged world and find out if he truly is the dreaded criminal, enlisting Sid in the process and taking advantage of his powers of deception.
Sondra catches Lyman's attention by pretending to drown near him at an exclusive club's swimming pool. When he rescues her, she introduces herself as Jade Spence, daughter of a wealthy oil family from Palm Beach. While Sid poses as her father, "Jade" begins dating Lyman. As the deception begins, Sondra is convinced Lyman is the murderer while Sid finds it impossible to believe. But as the film progresses and Sondra falls in love with Lyman, she begins to trust him as well. Meanwhile, Sid becomes less sanguine about Lyman as he notices more and more inconsistencies, especially after he and Sondra find a Tarot deck hidden under a French horn in Peter's vault, a climate-controlled music room containing expensive antique musical instruments. Sid finally prevails upon Sondra to write a news story implicating Lyman, but the newspaper editor refuses the story because of Sondra's lack of proof. Throughout their investigations, Sid and Sondra have a relationship that is in turns friendly, paternal, and also antagonistic—fueled, largely by Sondra's annoyance that her smooth "Jade Spence" charade is being compromised by Sid's obnoxious attempts to act the part of a nouveau riche oil baron.
Soon thereafter, however, the police arrest the real Tarot Card Killer. Sondra, relieved that her suspicions were for naught, reveals her real name and the deception she and Sid had practiced. Lyman is surprisingly gracious, and tells Sondra he desires to keep seeing her. They plan to spend the weekend at Lyman's isolated country estate. Later, Sid (at Strombel's urging) suggests that Peter used the Tarot Card murders to cover up a murder he committed.
While Sondra and Lyman vacation in the country, Sid continues to investigate this theory. He finds that Lyman did frequent a prostitute, Betty Gibson, who was later killed, apparently by the Tarot Card Killer. Gibson is described as a "baby-faced blonde" (just like Sondra) before Peter convinced her to dye her hair, presumably to match the profile of the other Tarot victims. When Sid calls Sondra with his findings, she waves them off. Unbeknownst to her, Peter is ominously listening in on another extension.
As the film approaches its climax, Sid breaks into Lyman's vault again, this time finding a mysterious key, which turns out to be for Betty Gibson's flat. Meanwhile, out on a rowboat in Lyman's lake, Peter confesses to Sondra that he killed Gibson to stop her blackmailing him, and he used the Tarot Card pattern to allay suspicion, just as Strombel had told Sid. Peter comments on the irony that he first met Sondra by saving her from drowning, and now she really would drown. He would kill Sid later; no one would connect an obscure stage magician's death to that of a clumsy journalism student. This scene is intercut with shots of Sid driving madly to the Lyman estate to rescue Sondra, a shot interrupted by an off-camera crash.
After his confession, Peter throws Sondra into the lake and watches her go under. He then calls the police to report her drowning death. When they question him, he tells them of how Sondra was a terrible swimmer and how she almost drowned that first day at the pool. Suddenly, Sondra enters, soaking wet but smiling cheerfully. She informs Peter and the police that the drowning had been an act to get his attention, and actually she was a very good swimmer.
The penultimate scene of the film takes place back in the newspaper offices. The editor who previously rejected Sondra's article now congratulates Sondra on a brilliant piece of investigative journalism, the start of a promising career. This scene also reveals that the appearance of Peter's cufflink at the earlier murder was a coincidence resulting from the fact that he regularly visited prostitutes.
Sondra seems flattered, and says she must also credit Joe Strombel and the late Sid Waterman, Splendini. The final scene of the film shows Sid, now himself a passenger on the Reaper's ship, performing for his fellow spirits the same magical gags and comedy routines he did in life.
The lead character (originally an adult journalist) was tailored specifically to Johansson, whom Allen observed as having an unutilized "funny" quality about her while working on the previous film, Match Point.
The film is the second of Allen's films (the other being Hollywood Ending) not to have a UK theatrical release. However, it was given a British TV premiere on February 7, 2009 on BBC Two.
As is often the case with Allen's films, there is no original score. Most of the music pieces heard in the film are ones composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Johann Strauss Jr., and Edvard Grieg.
The film received generally mixed reviews from critics. As of January 21, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film received 38 percent positive reviews, based on 132 reviews.[1] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 48 out of 100, based on 35 reviews.[2]
Stephen Hunter, of The Washington Post called it the "worst movie Woody Allen has ever made":
At the other extreme, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, who also gave positive reviews to Allen's Melinda and Melinda, called it "the funniest movie of the year so far" and Allen's funniest film in a decade. He also said:
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called it "not especially funny yet oddly appealing":
Ty Burr of The Boston Globe called it "fluffy, fatally implausible farce":
Scoop opened in 538 American theatres on July 28, 2006. In its first three days, it grossed $3,046,924 for a per-theatre-average of $5,663. Box Office Mojo listed its opening as the biggest limited release premiere of 2006.[7] By the time the film's domestic run had ended on September 28, 2006, it grossed $10,525,717 in the U.S. and $39,212,510 worldwide.[8] The film had a $4 million budget,[9] not including prints and advertising expense.
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