Scoop: A gripping, timely drama
Review Overview
Cast
8Pacing
8Pertinence
8David Farnor | On 07, Apr 2024
Director: Philip Martin
Cast: Rufus Sewell, Gillian Anderson, Billie Piper, Romola Garai, Connor Swindells, Keeley Hawes
Certificate: 15
“This is what Newsnight is. We hold the powerful to account.” Those are the words of the editor of BBC’s news programme, Esme (Romola Garai), as the show lands one of its biggest interviews in recent memory: Prince Andrew. The conversation between the Queen’s favourite son and Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) about the prince’s friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was a momentous bit of journalism – and an astonishing piece of TV. Netflix’s Scoop relives the build-up to the interview, as well as the exchange itself, with a gripping, prickly unease.
Directed by The Crown veteran Philip Martin, the film tellingly begins with photographer Jae Donnelly (the ever-brilliant Connor Swindells) snapping a picture of Andrew and Epstein walking together in Central Park in 2019. Nine years later, as Epstein’s house is raided by the FBI, producer Sam McAlister (Billie Piper) spies an opportunity to make good on a connection she’s been building with Andrew’s private secretary, Amanda (Keeley Hawes), to get him on the show.
Peter Moffat’s script is based on McAlister’s memoir, and frames BBC’s coup in parallel with McAlister’s own overcoming of odds – as a single working-class mum in a media landscape dominated by the privileged, she’s looked down upon by her colleagues as a liability. But her dogged attitude, combined with relentless research and a knack for charm and persuasion, makes her an underrated asset. Crucially, her punching above her perceived weight comes as the BBC is facing severe budget cuts – and the film presents her determination as partly fuelled by her being tired of Newsnight not focusing on hard, important topics instead of broadcasting the same old conversations with the same old people.
Billie Piper is wonderfully sparky as the reckless but savvy booker, and she has excellent chemistry with Keeley Hawes’ secretary, who is portrayed as being motherly and misguided. She also clashes superbly with Emily Maitlis, portrayed with a steely composure by Gillian Anderson, even as her ability to inhabit her seems completely effortless. A key moment comes when Maitlis gives McAlister a chance to speak into the interview strategy, and goes on to follow her advice of letting Andrew talk his own way into hot water.
And so the production is geared generously around giving Rufus Sewell time and space to step into Andrew’s shoes. He does so with a queasy, unsettling and uncanny skill – he gets under Andrew’s skin and performs him with a petulant arrogance that he wears on his sleeve as if it’s loveable charisma. And so we watch Sewell re-enact the now-infamous comments about being polite to Epstein as the “right thing” to do, about visiting a Pizza Express in Woking and about not being able to sweat.
In such a role, prosthetics are usually a distraction but Sewell is so good you barely notice them, as his piercing gaze becomes a squirming display of delusion. He’s astonishingly out of touch as he essentially undermines his own account of events, and that astonishment is rivalled only by the incredulity that this conversation even managed to take place amid the royal family’s historically careful handling of its own public appearance.
The film notably doesn’t give us much insight into Buckingham Palace’s processes or stance – we hear, secondhand, that the Queen trust’s Andrew’s judgement of the situation. We do, however, get a brilliantly conceived scene in which Andrew and Amanda chat to Emily and Sam with Andrew’s daughter, Beatrice (Charity Wakefield), present. And we get a glimpse of Andrew berating a member of staff for not organising his teddy bears correctly. Andrew’s apparent certainty that he has handled things correctly is enough to discredit him – a brief shot of Andrew’s phone pinging with notifications after the TV interview is broadcast is a hint at his realisation that he can’t escape the consequences of his decisions in the eyes of the public.
And that’s where Scoop’s strength intentionally lies: in reliving an example of the media holding power to account, while keeping the powerful mostly hidden behind closed doors. Slickly clocking in at under two hours, Scoop isn’t wanting to be an investigative drama about Epstein’s victims, but a reminder of the value in journalism (and individual tenacity) that isn’t compromised by power, money or privilege. And, as the film arrives amid further pressure on the BBC – including shortening Newsnight to a 30-minute programme – that message is a timely one.