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July 28, 2006
The irresistible Woody
Allen's latest movie is a laugh-out-loud charmer.
KATHARINE HAMER EDITOR
For a while, it was like Woody Allen's star truly had fallen. Surrounded
by personal scandal in the wake of his collapsed partnership with
Mia Farrow and marriage to her much-younger adoptive daughter, the
legendary funnyman seemed to have run out of steam. The characters
he played, in movies like Small Time Crooks and Hollywood
Ending, were pale imitations of his personal bests.
Ladies and gentlemen, the man is back in the game.
After shooting last year's Match Point in London, Allen completed
a second film in the city, which – along with his new muse,
actress Scarlett Johansson – is proving to be a perfect foil
for the Manhattanite.
For Scoop, a comedy-mystery about breaking a career-making
story, Allen put himself back in front of the camera, playing a
neurotic illusionist called Splendini. The life of the magician,
otherwise known as Sid Waterman, is turned upside down when he calls
a volunteer – visiting American journalism student Sondra Pransky
(Johansson) – on stage to assist with a trick. While inside
Splendini's "dematerializing" chamber, Sondra is visited
by the escaped spirit of the late journalist Joe Strombel (Ian McShane)
who gives her a "scoop" about the infamous "Tarot
Card Killer" murder case. The killer, according to Strombel,
is none other than Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman), the dashing young
son of a lord. Sondra sets out on his tail, with Sid in tow, and
immediately becomes smitten – which somewhat compromises her
nascent journalistic career.
Punctuated by peppy classical tunes – Swan Lake's "Dance
of the Cygnets" and the main theme from Prokofiev's Peter
and the Wolf – Scoop is equal parts nail-biter and
uproarious comedy. Allen and Johansson have a clearly developed
rapport, playing off each other to masterful effect – and Allen
unspools some of his best lines in years. Pretending to be Sondra's
oil magnate father from Palm Beach, he dances his way around posh
garden parties, performing card tricks and telling members of the
aristocracy, "you're a credit to your race." "Oh,"
he says at another party, "I must find out who the gardener
is, my topiary moose is starting to look a little shabby around
the antlers." "I bought my first Rubens with my poker
winnings," he announces during a game with Peter's associates.
"You bought a Rubens painting?" one asks in astonishment.
"No, not a painting," Allen elucidates, "a sandwich!"
In a similar vein is the priceless sight of him beetling down a
British motorway in a Smart car.
Johansson, in a departure from her usual siren-like roles, excels
here as the flustered, lovesick, wacky college student ("Jack
the Ripper," she asks, when a comparison is drawn between the
Victorian mass murderer and the Tarot Card Killer, "is that
capitalized?") who finds Allen's bumbling both exasperating
and endearing.
McShane, a longtime British TV actor perhaps best known to audiences
on this side of the pond for his current role in Deadwood, perfectly
embodies the wild-eyed conspiracy theorist reporter Strombel. Jackman
holds his own, too, as the pompous Peter, although his attempts
at an English accent are somewhat leaky.
Early in the movie, Sid tells Sondra that "excitement in my
life is dinner without heartburn after it."
Scoop is assuredly a whole lot more fun than that.
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