Scoop
(2006) dir. Woody Allen
viewed: 12/16/06
I am not a particular Woody Allen afficianado. I like Zelig (1983) and The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and other earlier films and the last one that I liked of his was probably Sweet and Lowdown (1999) or Everyone Says I Love You (1996). Actually, I guess that I have seen quite a few and have even liked several of them. I think I saw part or all of Small Time Crooks (2000) and have read that despite regularly releasing films almost every year, that he’s definitely been on an artistic decline for a long while.
That said, at least in the local paper, there was a lot of positive reaction to his last two films, Match Point (2005) and Scoop, both of which are set in London and both of which star Scarlett Johansson, the latter of which films was written with her in mind after having worked with her on the former one.
The film is cute. It’s watchable and entertaining. But it’s really pretty hackneyed and trite, and clumsily directed like some amateur roadshow. Allen keeps all the best lines for himself, which he delivers in his unique, inimitable way. Johansson buoyantly plays her part, a light-weight hardly serious role as a journalism major Nancy Drew. She is a hot little number, though, I will say. That is, with all of my personal journalistic objectivity in mind.
Hugh Jackman has a mirthless role as the man in question. He’s a stiff as a board, but maybe that is how he was written. Anyways, the whole thing lacks complexity, but has an interesting potential comparative twist with two other films from 2006, The Illusionist and The Prestige, which also featured Jackman. Perhaps it’s simply the prestidigitation, the disappearing and reappearing, or maybe, the film’s best conceit, the ghosts and the boat of death. Or maybe Scarlett Johansson is the film’s best conceit…I’ll have to ponder that.
