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‘Scoop’ Review: Gillian Anderson and Billie Piper Go In for the Kill in an Engrossing Look Behind Prince Andrew’s Fall From Grace
Gillian Anderson, Billie Piper and Rufus Sewell star in 'Scoop,' a taut dramatization of Prince Andrew's infamous BBC Newsnight interview.
A single mother with proudly working-class roots, McAlister is briskly good at her job, netting A-list talent galore for “Newsnight,” but her liberal colleagues chafe against what they perceive as her tabloid approach to news journalism — with the well-spoken, conscientious Maitlis ( Gillian Anderson, in a performance of witty mimicry, but human resolve too) embodying old-school BBC values. “Why don’t they see me as one of them?” McAlister sighs to her mother, while simultaneously berating her BBC cohorts for their principled snobbery, vocally wishing they had “half the instincts and a quarter of the contacts of the average tabloid paparazzo.” Specifically, she’s thinking of New York-based shutterbug Jae Donnelly (Connor Swindells), who’s been monitoring Epstein for years — and whose gotcha 2010 snapping of Prince Andrew in conversation with the disgraced financier is tensely portrayed in the film’s pre-credit prologue. Martin and editor Kristina Hetherington cleverly tease out the ultimate dynamic of the broadcast, at one point cross-cutting between their respective rehearsals of questions and answers, before the film succumbs to the simpler pleasures of pop-cultural reenactment: There’s a tingle of camp to Anderson and Sewell’s faithful readings of exchanges that have already been endlessly memed, from the memorably banal “Pizza Express in Woking” alibi to the ludicrous no-sweat defense.
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