SCOOP (2024) – Not quite The Crown, but this will have to do in its absence
Rating: ⭐⭐ 1/2

This is a lightweight thriller based on the relatively recent true events on how several newspeople from BBC convinced Prince Andrew to be interviewed about the scandal involving his friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2019. Sam McAlister (played by Billie Piper) was the BBC TV producer for their programme called Newsnight. Amidst the treat of being retrenched at that time as part of the company wide plan to reduce cost, Sam fought to retain her importance by coming up with the idea of getting an exclusive interview with the Prince over the scandal of his association with a known sex offender who was a child abuser and pedophile. The Prince was convinced to be interviewed so that he has the chance to tell his side of the story. The now infamous interview was conducted by Emily Maitlis (played by Gillian Anderson) the leading BBC newscaster at that time. Both Sam and Emily were instrumental in making the interview happen.
The plot is relatively thin for a feature length movie as it kept its focus on how the interview was secured. This made the film felt stretched to make up its 1 hour 42 mins runtime. The interview itself was reenacted almost in its entirety which took up a good portion of the film’s runtime itself. Apparently, this was very accurately recreated and provided the film’s best moments. Despite the lean material, Scoop does make for riveting cinema thanks to the strong and convincing performances of its cast portraying the real people. Gillian Anderson is particularly impressive as Emily has a uniquely strong character and presence. Equally convincing was Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew, who looked the part perfectly. The interesting thing about this is what happened during the time the interview was recorded and after the interview was aired. The Prince and his aides were visibly happy and satisfied with how the interview went but the actual reaction to the interview was quite different. This clearly shows the disconnect the Prince had with the actual world.

Scoop’s subject matter is very much in the same league as the excellent TV series The Crown and reminded of how I missed the series. Like The Crown, it provides an engrossing inside look at yet another Royal scandal, but it does not come close to the depth and insightfulness of a typical episode of The Crown which is seemingly achieved so effortlessly.
I understand that there is going to be a 3 episodes series from Amazon titled “A Very Royal Scandal” that covers much of the same ground as Scoop. It would be interesting to see how that turns out. I assume that that would cover a wider scope in its narration to be able to fill three episodes.