Scoop
Review by Peter T. Chattaway | posted 7/28/2006
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There once was a time when Woody Allen films were compared to the films of other directors. At first, he outright spoofed the works of Antonioni and Eisenstein, and then, as his artistic ambitions became more serious, he emulated the works of Bergman and Fellini. But lately, the primary reference point for Woody Allen films has been, well, other Woody Allen films. And nowhere is that more evident than in Scoop, a film that plays like a pastiche of several of his other works.
Because it stars Scarlett Johansson as an American who hobnobs with the British upper class, Scoop most obviously invites comparisons with Match Point—but where that film was deadly serious, this new film is a light-spirited lark. And because Johansson plays a journalism student who tries, in her own amateurish way, to learn the identity of a mysterious serial murderer called the Tarot Card Killer, this film is similar in spirit to one of Allen's earlier trifles, Manhattan Murder Mystery.
Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman in the lead roles
The comparisons certainly don't end there. Like Broadway Danny Rose, the new film features Allen himself as a character, in this case named Sid Waterman, who qualifies his sometimes blunt criticisms of other people with the words "and I say this with all due respect"; and also like that earlier film, the new one begins with men sitting around a table and reminiscing about one of their colleagues—in this case, a journalist named Joe Strombel (Ian McShane) who recently passed away.
Like Shadows and Fog, the new film plays with the idea that we can cheat death, for at least a little while, through the illusory power of magic. The first time we see Joe, he is on a ferry with the Grim Reaper and several other recently deceased people, crossing that dark river into the underworld; one of Joe's fellow passengers believes she was poisoned for discovering the Tarot Card Killer's true identity, and Joe, never one to abandon a good scoop, hops off the boat and swims back to our world—arriving in a cabinet that is part of a magic trick performed by Sid Waterman, who goes by the name "The Great Splendini" for his stage-magician act.
Jackman, Johansson, and director Woody Allen, who plays a role
Like the cabinet in Oedipus Wrecks, Woody Allen's contribution to the anthology New York Stories, the magic cabinet in this film is supposed to make people disappear and reappear, and the old-school magic is combined with an oddly modern reference to the "molecules" of the people who step inside. And like the cabinet in that other film, the cabinet in this one isn't supposed to really work—it's all just a trick, after all—and yet something supernatural does happen. Johansson's character, Sondra Pransky, just happens to be the audience member who has stepped inside the cabinet before Joe appears there, so he assumes she's a journalist and urgently passes on his tip. Before fading back into the afterlife, he tells her the Tarot Card Killer is probably one Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman), the son of a British lord.
Sondra doesn't know quite what to do with this information, and since she met Joe inside Sid's cabinet, she persuades Sid to join her in solving this mystery. Her friends (Sondra is staying with some wealthy British acquaintances) tell her that Peter likes to swim at a certain club, so she and Sid go there, and she pretends to drown to get Peter's attention. Her scheme works, and immediately after "rescuing" her, Peter invites her to his estate, and she accepts, though she does not tell him her real name; she also tells him that Sid is her father. Those who remember how Allen used to cast himself as the love interest for much younger women will appreciate this change of pace, though even here, Allen doesn't quite seem to be acting his age; at 70, he could easily be the grandfather of the 21-year-old Johansson.
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