Scoop (2006)
Film Overview
An American journalism student visiting London receives the story of a lifetime from a dead reporter and joins an ageing stage magician to investigate whether a charming British aristocrat might also be a serial killer.
Scarlett Johansson plays Sondra Pransky, an American student whose ambitions as a journalist receive an unexpected boost while she is attending a magic show performed by Sid Waterman, played by Woody Allen.
During one of Sid’s tricks, Sondra encounters the ghost of recently deceased reporter Joe Strombel. Even death has not stopped Strombel pursuing a story, and he tells her that wealthy aristocrat Peter Lyman may be connected to the Tarot Card Killer murders.
Hugh Jackman plays Peter, whose charm, wealth and apparent openness immediately complicate Sondra’s investigation. She begins seeing him socially while searching for evidence that might connect him to the crimes.
Sid reluctantly becomes Sondra’s partner and poses as her father as the two move through London’s clubs, country houses, hotels and wealthy social circles. The investigation becomes increasingly confused by Sondra’s attraction to the very man she is supposed to be treating as a suspect.
Ian McShane plays Strombel, who continues trying to communicate from the other side, while the soundtrack replaces Allen’s usual jazz emphasis with Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Johann Strauss and other classical selections that give the comic mystery a deliberately theatrical quality.
Watch Scoop
My Review
Murder, magic and the problem with falling for your suspect
Scoop is lighter than Match Point in almost every possible way, despite beginning with another story about murder among the British upper classes. The difference is that this time Woody Allen is far more interested in the pleasure of the investigation than the darkness of the crime.
The premise is cheerfully ridiculous. Joe Strombel has died but remains so committed to journalism that the afterlife is simply an inconvenience between him and his next exclusive.
He manages to communicate with Sondra Pransky during Sid Waterman’s magic act and hands an inexperienced journalism student the sort of story that would normally define an entire career.
Sondra immediately reacts in exactly the wrong way for a disciplined reporter: she becomes personally involved with her principal suspect.
Joe Strombel dies and discovers that apparently even death is not a good enough reason to miss a scoop.
Scarlett Johansson’s performance is the main reason the film has such an easy comic rhythm. After playing Nola in Match Point, she is given almost the opposite kind of character here.
Sondra is awkward, impulsive and not especially convincing when pretending to be more sophisticated than she is. Johansson lets her talk too quickly, over-explain herself and behave like somebody permanently trying to catch up with the situation she has created.
That makes her pairing with Woody Allen work surprisingly well. Sid believes he has reached an age where he should know better than to become involved in a murder investigation. Sondra simply keeps moving until he finds himself involved anyway.
They quickly develop the argumentative rhythm of a mismatched comic family, particularly once Sid begins pretending to be her father.
Sondra approaches investigative journalism with enthusiasm, instinct and almost no ability to remain professionally detached.
Sid Waterman is one of Allen’s more enjoyable late screen performances because the character is not carrying the entire romantic plot. He can simply be irritable, nervous and suspicious.
His profession is particularly useful. Sid makes his living creating illusions, yet he is the person most reluctant to believe the supernatural explanation behind Sondra’s story.
The film therefore places two different kinds of deception beside one another. Sid openly deceives an audience for entertainment. The killer, whoever that turns out to be, may be using wealth and respectability to conceal something far more serious.
The magician knows tricks exist. What worries him is that Sondra may not recognise when somebody else is performing one.
Hugh Jackman’s Peter Lyman has to be plausible in two completely opposing directions. He must be charming enough for Sondra’s attraction to make sense and suspicious enough that the investigation never becomes absurdly easy to dismiss.
Jackman is very good at occupying that ambiguity. Peter seems relaxed, generous and amused by Sondra’s eccentric behaviour. There is no immediate reason to believe he is hiding anything.
That is precisely what makes Sondra’s position difficult. Every enjoyable moment with him becomes evidence against the story she is supposed to be investigating.
She begins wanting Peter to be innocent, and the moment a reporter starts wanting a particular answer, the investigation becomes considerably less reliable.
The closer Sondra gets to Peter, the less she wants her greatest journalistic discovery to be true.
The supernatural machinery also gives the film a playful connection to theatrical illusion. Joe Strombel exists somewhere beyond ordinary life, escaping the world of the dead long enough to push his unfinished story back towards the living.
Allen does not spend any time establishing rules for the afterlife because rules would only slow the comedy. The dead travel, complain and apparently remain professionally ambitious.
That casual treatment of death is exactly right for the tone. The film has murder in its plot but very little interest in becoming frightening.
It is closer to a drawing-room mystery interrupted by magic tricks and romantic comedy.
London once again looks excellent. After the colder social world of Match Point, Allen uses the city more playfully here.
The Dorchester, Reform Club, Citypoint, Holland Park and elegant private homes give Sondra access to exactly the kind of British world an American student might find both impressive and slightly theatrical.
Remi Adefarasin photographs the locations without the moral severity of the previous film. This London is designed for intrigue rather than tragedy.
Sid looks particularly funny inside it. His nervous New York patter seems to have arrived in a world of country estates and private clubs without receiving the dress code.
Peter belongs completely to this polished British world. Sid Waterman looks as though somebody accidentally left a New York magician in the members’ lounge.
The classical soundtrack is another major part of the film’s personality. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake dominates, immediately giving the story a sense of romance, mystery and theatrical illusion.
Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King is almost impossibly well suited to comic suspense because the music keeps accelerating until tension becomes excitement.
Johann Strauss’s polkas and Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance add speed, while Xavier Cugat and Lester Lanin briefly pull the soundtrack towards a lighter dance-band world.
It is an unusually classical Allen soundtrack, but it fits the film far better than a conventional jazz selection would have done.
The eventual solution works because Allen has spent most of the film allowing us to enjoy Peter almost as much as Sondra does.
Once the investigation begins closing around him, the light romantic surface becomes more threatening. Sondra finally has to treat the possibility of danger seriously rather than as the exciting background to a relationship.
Sid, predictably, becomes the person worrying most about her. Their comic partnership has gradually acquired genuine affection underneath the insults.
By the time the mystery resolves, the journalist and the magician have become a better team than either had any reason to expect.
Sondra spends the film trying to get the story. Sid spends most of it trying to make sure she survives long enough to write it.
I do not think Scoop needs to be treated as anything more complicated than what it is: a brisk comic mystery with a charming central partnership and a wonderfully improbable supernatural premise.
Coming directly after Match Point, it is also interesting to see Allen use London for almost opposite purposes. Wealth and class remain present, but the atmosphere has changed completely.
Johansson demonstrates a comic ability that had barely been required in the previous film, Allen gets one of his most relaxed late acting roles and Jackman understands exactly how much charm the mystery needs.
The dead reporter gets his story, the magician gets dragged into journalism and Sondra learns that falling in love with the subject is probably not taught in many reporting courses.
Cast and Characters
Scarlett Johansson
An American journalism student whose unexpected supernatural source gives her a murder story and leads her directly towards Peter Lyman.
Woody Allen
A stage magician reluctantly recruited as Sondra’s investigative partner and eventually required to pose as her father.
Hugh Jackman
A wealthy and charming British aristocrat whom Sondra is told may be connected to a series of murders.
Ian McShane
A recently deceased journalist so committed to his profession that he continues pursuing one final major story from beyond the grave.
Romola Garai
Sondra’s friend in London and part of the social world surrounding her unexpected investigation.
Julian Glover
Peter’s father, representing the established upper-class world into which Sondra and Sid have rather awkwardly inserted themselves.
Tchaikovsky gives the murder mystery the atmosphere of a magic show
Classical music dominates the soundtrack, with Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Johann Strauss and Khachaturian creating a mixture of romance, suspense and playful theatricality.
Swan Lake
Selections from Tchaikovsky’s ballet recur throughout the soundtrack. The music’s combination of romantic beauty and darker tension fits a film in which attraction and suspicion are continually occupying the same scene.
The music keeps moving between enchantment and danger
Grieg’s Peer Gynt, Johann Strauss’s polkas and Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance give the mystery a deliberately heightened quality.
Xavier Cugat and Lester Lanin add lighter dance music, preventing the classical selections from making the film feel too solemn.
In the Hall of the Mountain King
The accelerating movement from Peer Gynt is ideal music for a mystery that keeps turning comic curiosity into genuine danger.
Sabre Dance
The London Symphony Orchestra performs the famously energetic piece, giving the film one of its most frantic musical moments.
Tritsch-Tratsch Polka
Strauss adds a bright comic pace that suits Sid and Sondra’s increasingly improvised investigation.
Miami Beach Rhumba
A brief shift away from the European classical repertoire towards the lighter, more familiar dance-band world often heard elsewhere in Allen’s films.
Locations
London becomes a playground for Sondra and Sid’s investigation, moving from luxury hotels and private clubs to parks, pubs and the financial district.
The Dorchester
The Park Lane hotel is one of the major luxury London settings used during Sondra’s movement into Peter Lyman’s wealthy social world.
Reform Club
The historic private club doubles as the Governor’s Club, strengthening the upper-class environment surrounding Peter.
Citypoint
The modern tower at 1 Ropemaker Street provides the exterior of Peter Lyman’s office building.
Holland Park
The park is among the recognisable London locations used as the investigation moves beyond hotels and private interiors.
The Mitre
The traditional London pub adds a more ordinary city setting to a film largely occupied by wealth and aristocracy.
A Comic Upper-Class Mystery
The locations allow Sondra and Sid to move through a recognisably British world of privilege while remaining unmistakably American outsiders.
Awards and Recognition
Second Allen Collaboration
Johansson moved directly from the dramatic role of Nola in Match Point to a completely different comic performance as Sondra.
Allen Remains in Britain
The film continued the European production period begun with Match Point, once again using London rather than New York as its main setting.
A Commercial Success
The film earned approximately $39 million worldwide, making its modest comic mystery a successful international release.
A Classical Soundtrack
Tchaikovsky, Grieg and Strauss give the film one of the most heavily classical soundtracks in Allen’s filmography.
Comedy Meets Murder Mystery
The screenplay combines romance, supernatural fantasy, detective fiction and stage magic without settling completely into any single genre.
The Light Side of London
Coming immediately after Match Point, Scoop demonstrates how completely the same city could be transformed simply by changing tone.