Rating: C+
“Damn, am I one of those neurotics?” I find that I ask myself this question too often for it to be untrue. I’m a messy person and I put on a front that I’m this calm guy, but when it comes down to the real nitty-gritty, I’m a neurotic, finding frustration in the most mundane scenarios. Maybe that’s why I love Woody Allen. You have to be a little tense to understand the man behind one of the most prolific careers in film. As a native New Yorker, you have to feel something for the guy. Personally, I wish he were my uncle. Family functions would finally be a joy. Just keep any adopted children away, and I think he’d be a riot.
In Woody Allen’s newest, Scoop, Scarlett Johansson, who plays Sondra Pransky, gets to call Allen, Dad. Pransky is an ambitious journalism student who happens upon her breakthrough story while visiting London and gets her information from a dead reporter. She brings Sid Waterman (Allen) on her investigation of Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman), a handsome aristocrat, who the dead reporter suspects is actually a murderer. She goes undercover with Waterman who poses as her father, and like a father can be embarrassing but necessary.
This is Allen’s second movie starring Johansson. He genuinely respects her as an actress, but I think Woody’s got a crush. You can’t blame him. Johansson has this understated, yet overwhelming beauty. It’s the kind of beauty that would have you taking a bullet for her just to get her number. She’s an excellent actress but her portrayal of Pransky falls flat, which leads me to believe that Woody’s crush is just that, a crush. I’m not sure whom you can hold accountable. Her dialogue just doesn’t compare to Allen’s and the character isn’t fresh and endearing, as most of his classic female counterparts are. There is a partition that separates the actress from her character in Scoop, and for that reason her much older sidekick eclipses her performance. Jackman isn’t very believable either, but he’s got the pined-for pretty boy persona on lock and even his acting trumps hers. The chemistry suffers as a result.
Woody hasn’t been at his sharpest in recent years, with one unremarkable movie after another. Scoop falls under the category, but manages to survive by the writer/director’s punchy dialogue. The witty writing is reminiscent of his earlier works, and for whatever reason it never gets very stale. Allen’s anxious geek character is one we all know and who some of us just can’t get enough of. Many will say enough is enough, but I applaud him. He makes me laugh, so that has to count for something.
Writing for himself has become second nature for Allen. His humor is clever, but it comes too easy at this point. It’s effortless, and that’s exactly what the entirety of Scoop feels like. “Oh yes. It’s time for another one. I’ll just reach into the hat and pull out a series of plot elements and throw them together.” Thankfully for Woody, what comes natural to him, what won’t stretch his capacity, is still better than most.
Scoop is comedy/suspense, and I list suspense second because it’s an obvious afterthought. The murder mystery is the Jaguar vehicle for a trove of really good jokes. The mystery is gilded. It’s nice to watch, but it breaks down easily and drives like shit. I like my suspense difficult to watch, yet magnetic. Scoop’s mystery doesn’t grab you and is inordinately predictable. The sequence of events is typical and happens in such a small framework that you’re never once surprised nor fearful of what could happen to the characters. There is one event that squirms outside of your expectations, but it comes anticlimactically. You just don’t care.
Manhattan Murder Mystery is one of my favorites of Woody’s, and the comedy and suspense in it are woven seamlessly and believably. These themes are detached in Scoop, and the theme that’s supposed to act as the underpinning that braces the other is chewed away by an uninspired plot.
We’ve seen Allen fight off his auteur tendencies a few times in the past, but more recently with Matchpoint. Scoop finds him back in his comfortable place. He’s returned to London for a second time, but instead of writing a script about English characters, he brings New York to Europe. The juxtaposition is funny to watch, but the fish-out-of-water plot is not built up in plain sight. His character jokes about it, but Allen gives us the impression that he’s resting easy. We all know that his character would be submerged in anxiety and distaste for any city that isn’t Manhattan.
Considering Allen puts out films as often as Frank Zappa put out records, Allen will surely produce something to be proud of again soon, but Scoop isn’t that film. If you remove all that’s wrong with this film you’d be left with a Woody Allen stand-up routine. You’ll laugh, and it’ll feel great, but that’s only if you’re able to forget everything else that’s on the stage.
