Scoop (2006)

Scoop: 2006, dir. Woody Allen. Seen at Arbor Great Hills.
I made a solemn vow about two years ago, after seeing Sweet and Lowdown on DVD, never to watch a post-Bullets over Broadway Woody Allen movie again. (Read the last paragraph of the above-linked review for the exact wording of the vow.) I was tempted by Match Point, because so many people who’d given up on Allen were praising the film to the skies. I was tempted recently by an ebullient review I read of Curse of the Jade Scorpion. But I still felt skeptical.
I broke my vow last weekend, to see Scoop … mainly because my husband wanted to go. He doesn’t like Woody Allen movies much, and I was so surprised by the role reversal (three years ago, I would have been urging him to go) that I felt I ought to acquiesce. I’m not entirely sure why he wanted to go — it was the least annoying comedy in theaters, he likes Scarlett Johansson, he read some good reviews — but off we went.
Scoop was a charming afternoon’s diversion — another entry in the genre I’ve discovered this year that I call “the smart person’s dumb comedy.” Light comedy might be a more appropriate term. I came up with the term after we saw Thank You for Smoking and Art School Confidential, both flawed comedies that were not as clever as they wanted to be (or as I wanted them to be), but entertaining fluff that didn’t rely on bodily-function jokes, offensive stereotyping, or the Wilson brothers.

My husband described Scoop as feeling comfortable and familiar in an old-fashioned way. I wondered if this meant that Scoop belonged to another era, perhaps the early Woody Allen era of the early Seventies. The movie isn’t as full of jokes as Bananas or even Take the Money and Run, but it’s not an homage to an earlier time, such as the Thirties. The movie does contain many of the elements of the classic theatrical farce, although at least we’re spared a lot of bedroom door-slamming.
Scarlett Johansson is cute and convincing as Sondra Pransky, the Brooklyn college student who gave up dental hygiene to study journalism, and who wants to break a first-rate story during her summer trip to London. (I spent a summer in London when I was in college, and it was nothing like this. I feel a bit cheated.) While attending a performance by second-rate magician Splendini (Allen), she encounters the ghost of a top Fleet Street reporter (Ian McShane) who just discovered the scoop of the decade: the identity of London’s recent serial killer. McShane is one of the best things about Scoop. (I guess I should start watching Deadwood on TV.) Sondra decides to investigate the alleged killer, millionaire Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman), with help from Splendini aka Sid, and whaddya know, that Hugh Jackman is just irresistable. He can’t possibly be the serial killer … or can he?
I found Allen’s performance to be his usual shtick, including some jokes I believe I heard him crack in movies from 25 years ago, but my husband isn’t as familiar with Allen’s humor. He got a kick out of lines like “I was born in the Hebrew persuasion, but I converted to narcissism.” Occasionally Allen’s twitches and tics seemed tiresome to me, particularly in scenes early in the film. Once the plot is more defined, his character has more to do and doesn’t stand around stammering in a way that is supposed to be funny. He’s funnier when he’s masquerading as Sondra’s oil-tycoon dad, a short elderly Jewish American man mingling with the British uppercrust, showing them card tricks from his magician’s act. I am glad Allen does not attempt to give his character a love interest — one difficulty I had with his later films was that the aging Allen often paired up with much younger women. (I am trying to leave his personal life out of this.)
I wasn’t able to predict the ending of Scoop in advance — my guess turned out to be wrong. The movie manages to maintain suspense pretty well, especially for a light comedy.
Scoop is not one of Allen’s more memorable films, and it didn’t convince me to give any other recent Allen films a try. However, It was a fun movie to watch at the time and a good option if you want to see a funny non-blockbuster in a theater this summer.