Scoop. (M, 103 minutes)
4 stars
Scoop opens on a clear winter's day in New York in 2010 at the apartment of a tabloid photographer contemplating a list of potential assignments.
Instead of celebrities fallen on hard times or the activities of Arabian royalty, he follows a lead nearby in Manhattan where Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, is a house guest at the townhouse of Jeffrey Epstein. It's not far from another house, a warehouse of nubiles kept for the entertainment of the host and his guests.
The pic that Jae Donnelly (Connor Swindells) obtained via telephoto lens of the Duke and Epstein strolling through Central Park together became slender but telling evidence that they were closely associated, when there wasn't a great deal else to prove it.
The story, of a British prince who revelled in the nickname "randy Andy" until he became completely undone while buddies with a notorious sex trafficker, is not new. It's just that the saga of corruption among the social elites is timeless. Rufus Sewell is terrific as the prince.
Not to be confused with the Woody Allen film of the same name about a British aristocrat suspected of being a serial killer, and in no way comic, Scoop is an elegant and handsomely mounted Netflix account of a sordid piece of recent history. Philip Martin directs based on a screenplay co-written by Samantha McAlister, Peter Moffat and George Bussetil.
Scoop charts the history behind the television interview that was the prince's undoing, revealing him to be out of touch and without contrition. It was secured by screenwriter McAlister when she was a producer for Newsnight on BBC TV. A single mother, youngish and vulnerable, she was somewhat peripheral to the public-school crowd she worked with who seemed to regard her as "more Daily Mail than BBC". She is played here by Billie Piper. Newsnight's lead anchor, Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson), conducted the now infamous private interview with Prince Andrew at Buckingham Palace in November 2019. An intriguing presence, as slim as the pet whippet she brings to work, Maitlis could belong to the gallery of feisty media women who featured in the 2019 media expose Bombshell.
How difficult was it going to be to talk to the Queen's son about his friendship with a sex offender? she wondered beforehand. Deciding to avoid anything that weaponised her assets, Maitlis arrives in an outfit that hides legs kept trim through jogging. "Trousers," says the prince as she walks in. "Humph!"
The intense interview, based on exhaustive team prep and role play, was a model of the genre. Why, why had he stayed at the home of a convicted sex offender? It was the fact that really skewered him. Lame excuse after lame excuse. The interview was conducted in a tough but not sensational way, going in hard with the facts and never allowing the subject's charm to cloud the issues. All the while, Maitlis gave him every chance to reveal guilt, regret or shame. None of that. He bounded up afterwards, inviting the media present on a palace tour.
Epstein took his life in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial, and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison. There is plenty of this repugnant backstory on the net, but Scoop keeps it relatively outside the frame. No salacious restaging of sex parties here, just a few shots of lingerie on the prince's bed and an unbecoming glimpse of his backside when he emerges from the bath. You've been warned.
Revisiting the "prince and paedo" events that toppled Prince Andrew is a reminder for those of us who don't care for it that the royal family has seemed to totter from one crisis to the next in recent decades. It's too bad that the prince, who had had to relinquish his royal duties, had to forfeit his role as royal patron of Pitch@Palace, a business initiative linking entrepreneurs and investors, and all the other things he did as trade envoy.
While Scoop allows us to notice dismay among some as he struggles to answer the questions put, this glossy look at an ugly chapter of royal history can only add more grist to the mill for republicans everywhere.
