Scoop – Movie Review

Scoop is the dramatized story of how the disastrous 2019 BBC interview of Prince Andrew came about.

Scoop is based on the book Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews written by Sam McAlister and is directed by Philip Martin.

Plot

Scoop starts out with the cameraman Jae Donnelly (Connor Swindells) as he collects his equipment and leaves his home. The mission: get a friendly looking picture of Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell) and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (Colin Wells). With an accomplice, Jae stakes out the home of Epstein in New York where they think Andrew might be staying. Both Epstein’s men and royal protection officers are posted outside the door so it’s looking pretty conspicuous. Suddenly a rather young looking woman nonchalantly leaves the building.

“It’s like she wasn’t even there. She must have been coming for years.” – Jae Donnelly

Jae snaps some pictures of her but seems to feel bad about the whole situation since she barely appears to be 20 now, and there is no telling how long she has been providing her services to Epstein.

After an overnight stakeout the pair have some success as both Epstein and Prince Andrew leave the residence together. Looking for the perfect shot, Jae follows them to a nearby park where he strikes the motherload. The perfect pictures of Epstein and Andrew side by side deep in an intimate conversation. Jae lays on the ground elated as he knows this photo is going to be big.

The film cuts to Sam McAlister (Billie Piper) riding the bus with one of her many designer handbags that change throughout the scenes. Turns out the BBC is going through some “incredible challenges.” These challenges are so incredible in fact, that they are having to lay a bunch of people off. Like 450+ people. Everyone is worried that their job might be next, and for junior producer of Newsnight Sam McAlister who is known to be “last in, first out,” this could be the end for her.

Sam’s job doesn’t just benefit from her sitting at her desk, though. Sam is their booker, and her job is to get interviews with people who are hard to get. This involves a lot of shmoozing outside the office, which her teammates don’t really respect. She describes her job as going out and finding stories people actually care about, and oh does she find her story.

While perusing the internet for ideas, Sam comes across an ad for Pitch at Palace, a program at the palace meant to bring together young entrepreneurs and investors that was being hosted by Prince Andrew. Opening the day’s paper, she sees the photo snapped by Jae of Epstein and Andrew that is now 9 years old and in her head the story starts brewing.

Cutting to Pitch at Palace, we get to see Prince Andrew. Andrew is a pretentious, pompous douche, but he is known for his charisma that some people just eat up. Basically, his team is wayyyyy up his ass. They have a problem though. This story about the relationship between Epstein and Prince Andrew just won’t go away no matter how much they ignore it. The plan to make this go away is to invite journalists one by one to the palace to have tea with Prince Andrew so they can feel special and slowly realize he’s a good guy after all. What an idea. This proposed solution would take time though, and Andrew is inclined to a quicker fix.

Cue the perfectly timed email to Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), Prince Andrew’s private secretary from Sam McAlister suggesting a meeting. Amanda calls Sam to discuss this potential meeting, but they disagree on the terms. Prince Andrew’s people want a publicity stunt that puts Andrew in good light and doesn’t ask any questions referencing Epstein. Sam isn’t willing to give them this “red line” though, so for now the interview doesn’t look very likely.

This all changes though when Epstein is arrested by the FBI and his relationship with Prince Andrew once again comes under scrutiny.

This of course leads up to the disastrous interview between Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) and Prince Andrew.

My Thoughts

I think it was a good movie, but you kind of need to already know about the story before watching it for everything to flow as it’s meant to. The pompousness and ego of Prince Andrew was really showcased, along with how thoroughly snowed his staff was.  

One thing that really struck me was how closely the actors resembled the people they were playing with the help of makeup and prosthetics.

That’s it! Check out Scoop on Netflix and let me know what you think about it. Don’t forget to pop that popcorn!