Scoop (2024)

Scoop-(2024)
Scoop (2024)

Scoop

“It was a convenient place to stay.” – Prince Andrew, BBC Newsnight interview, November, 2019.

It’s hard to believe that BBC would conduct such an interview with Prince Andrew and even go as far as to think it was a good idea. In what fantasy world do people say things like “I don’t sweat” in public, or add “It was a convenient place to stay” and afterwards declare: “I really nailed that.” In fact, we are thoroughly aware of that world. No wonder Andrew felt that sense of self entitlement, he wore a royal badge. At the same time, there is a whole PR machine behind Prince Andrew. Presumably they operate in the real world. Then why allow such PR blunders? The interview was supposed to be more cordial, thought the celebris and so the outcome described by Royal Central editor-in-chief, Charlie Proctor as ‘quite dramatic’. The reality is that it wasn’t dramatic but downright horrendous. Phillip Martin made the movie “Scoop” based on Sam McAlister’s book “Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews” that documents the disastrous PR channel hunting.

Sam McAlister (Billie Piper) is an insider at the British Broadcasting Corporation’s News night, whose title is junior producer. She is in charge of sourcing and recruiting the guests. She has been labelled as someone who gets people who are writers. At the BBC, she is among many serious journalists. She has hair which is dyed spermy white, wears leather attires and is always running in and out of the office. Other journalists do not respect her. She is not one of them. She is not part of the roasters ‘Their biggest asset is life-long follicles endurance.’ Joe Joseph in a hear voice said, ‘Erin Brockovich’ had microwaved the same plot in the time frame.

And then there is Sam Sigston. One could say that he has quite an imagination; would Prince Andrew who has been cursed with the Epstein’s disaster in both life and character for nearly a decade now; putting forth a campaign to inspire ‘executive’ geniuses? There is an email address left, it’s the one that is usually quite secretive to ordinary people, and it’s the palace. Why not? Sam has the guts. Eventually, She crosses paths with Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), one of the most trusted and close people to the Prince. It is via Amanda, loveable as she is, that Sam makes the first step and gets her foot in the door. Amanda is not however put off by Sam’s eccentricity on the first contact and in fact sees it as an opportunity to finally behold Sam Spencer on a canvas. How to get her son to believe in such a ridiculous idea? His mother? It is so effortless. Samantha and Amanda are both mistrustful. Things have taken a turn. Nothing could have prepared Samantha for the revelation that Isaac Epstein had stepped out of this universe in August 2019.

The scoop moves towards Sam when it comes to her. It is actually Sam who chooses Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) to conduct the interview. Maitlis is a BBC journalist and news anchor who walks over the workplaces with a leashed whippet, looking down on her peers. Sam and her can never be more opposite of each other, but as the reality of the interview sets in, the women have to support one another. Emily has knowledge that Sam does not have, and Sam as well has knowledge that Emily does not have. They make a great pair.

Even amid the hectic off the camera moments at the BBC, we see Prince Andrew and allow ourselves to observe him in his element, and it is not a pretty sight. Andrew, portrayed by Rufus Sewell, comes across as a pathetic, abusive, self involved “mummy’s boy” who clearly doesn’t understand how to attract people. He may know how to ‘work’ a room but, in other ways, he is as dumb as a stock brick. Staff in the palace have their own horror tales of him ‘working for’ Andrew, and in one painful scene, Andrew is seen verbally abusing a frightened servant maid. It is notable, particularly the voice, if at times almost eerie how much Sewell looks like Andrew. He has such a tinnish Royal voice that one would assume air could not flow across his vocal cords easily. That heavy frustration and bewilderment of being above everything that surrounds him, Andrew’s entire body language can be translated as “When will these people stop making a big deal out of the Epstein situation?”

Lastly, Sam has a strong presence in every scene, helping to keep the momentum going as she walks in her high heeled boots from one room to the next, or from one corridor to another, where she is bound to find something. It is probably very unfair to characterize the whole BBC news organization as a bunch of dullards with no innovative thoughts, but it is in fact, a David and Goliath tale.

Sam was just a booking agent that nobody cares about, but he succeeded in bringing sports to the viewer in a way that no one thought was possible. (The film in its own cheeky way pays homage to the producers.)

The interview is presented nearly in its entirety, and it would be difficult to get the strange and tense atmosphere that both Anderson and Sewell do at the original. But now, we now get to know the cast behind the scenes, the shock on everyone’s faces as they know how bad this is going. In her book, McAlister writes that she was moving her head everywhere because of the Prince’s statements being quite unbelievable; it’s all too unbelievable for somebody to have stated that “I don’t sweat”. Unbelievable, is that what we just saw?

“Scoops” is also recently past its events that are quite well known to everyone that has watched the interview so there don’t seem to be anything new here and the interview stands out as an exemplary piece of work. The small details are what draws the viewer’s interest. In between lines where Sam is traveling home in the bus, he is so tired and sees a bunch of girls in the front row making loud noises while laughing. A change of emotions is depicted for Sam contemplative, remorseful, or concerned for the future. The innocent girls in the images above are how old Epstein’s victims were.

Tackling the story is the most important task in the newsroom, but as it seems, some forget what the story is. Is the story really, what went wrong during a disastrous interview of some no name disgraced prince? No, the real story grapples with the theme of powerful dominating over the powerless. But “Scoop” does not present this idea through a discourse. It is mounted on Piper’s expression as she stares at the careless teenage girls.

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