Scoop review: Well performed but ultimately surface level

Later in the year, we'll see Michael Sheen play the royal in Prime miniseries A Very Royal Scandal, but first up it's the turn of Rufus Sewell in Scoop, a film adapted from the memoir of former Newsnight guest booker Sam McAlister.

Promising to tell the behind-the-scenes-story of how the interview came about, the film follows McAlister (Billie Piper) as she tirelessly pursues leads while at odds with – at various points – both Newsnight colleagues and representatives from Buckingham Palace.

Directed by Philip Martin, who is no stranger to Netflix royal dramas having previously helmed several episodes of The Crown, the film is competently made but feels a little televisual.

It also features some commendable performances, with Gillian Anderson excelling as Emily Maitlis – who is presented as a kind of superwoman, constantly flanked by her pet whippet.

But it's by no means to downplay McAlister's doubtlessly vital work to suggest that the process of engineering the interview doesn't translate to an especially cinematic prospect.

For the most part, we are treated to a bunch of snappy conversations that don't shed much new light on press relations with the royal family – a subject that could certainly form the basis of an intriguing drama.

Scoop does occasionally touch on interesting themes, including the impact of frequent and ongoing cuts to journalism funding and Maitlis's regret over a previous interview with Bill Clinton, but it doesn't exactly probe deep into these issues.

Meanwhile, a plot strand focusing on the effect McAlister's work is having on her home life and relationship with her young son is particularly underbaked.

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The gold standard for this kind of quick turnaround journalism film remains the iconic Watergate drama All the President's Men, which starred Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. Almost half a century on from its release, that film still feels urgent, driven by an investigative spirit and sense of paranoia that is sorely lacking from Scoop.

Instead, all the developments here feel inevitable, meaning there is no sense of tension behind the drama - which consequently ensures the film resembles little more than a functional recap.

And so, for all that it purports to be the story of the women that secured the scoop, the centrepiece of the film becomes a near word-for-word reenactment of the most memorable bits of the interview itself – including Pizza Express in Woking, Prince Andrew's reported inability to sweat and all the rest of it.

Although this sequence is admirably performed, it essentially amounts to a well-executed act of mimicry, and feels rather pointless when the actual interview is readily available to watch in full.

Meanwhile, Prince Andrew himself is played as an incompetent comedy buffoon by Sewell – barely one step removed from a pantomime villain – with one scene showing him fiercely admonishing a Palace employee for incorrectly rearranging his large collection of stuffed toys.

It's understandable why the decision was made to portray him this way: his answers during the interview did quite rightly prompt ridicule, after all. But it's also a choice that feels a little iffy when bearing in mind the serious subject matter at hand.

This is an issue which is briefly alluded to in the film itself, when a collage of tweets poking fun at his most ludicrous answers is followed by another reminding people of the distinctly unfunny nature of the allegations made against him (which he has always strongly denied). But this is just one small moment, and a more effective film would have dug deeper into this contrast.

It all amounts to a movie that feels fairly surface level and unnecessary – a project which is, in many ways, the opposite of the forensic and probing interview style for which Emily Maitlis is renowned. Over to you, Prime Video.

Scoop will be available to stream on Netflix from Friday 5th April 2024. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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