SCOOP

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Focus Features
Grade: B+
Directed by: Woody Allen
Written By: Woody Allen
Cast: Woody Allen, Scarlett Johansson, Hugh Jackman, Ian
McShane
Screened at: Universal, New York, 7/6/06
Opens: July 28, 2006

Film buffs in the chattering classes discuss at what point Woody
Allen became less funny--although granted, Americans who live
in jes' folks areas may have never found him to be funny. Some
reject his dabbling in sentimental themes as in "Stardust
Memories" (1980) and politics, as in "Zelig" (1983)
or noir as in "Crimes and Misdemeanors" 1989). Those of us
who'd prefer that Woody revert to the early days of light albeit
neurotic comedies such as "Take the Money and Run" (1969),
"Bananas" (1972) and "Sleepers" (1973) can rejoice.
"Scoop" is a throwback to the Woody we hip, urban movie fans
can love. Though the well-developed, nicely coherent story is
feather-light, "Scoop" revels in verbal, rather than physical
humor, with throwaway lines that require attentive spectators,
since the performers do not pause to wait for audience reaction.

Shot in London, with Charles H. Joffe's lens taking in
sumptuous verdant gardens and crystal lakes, "Scoop" is at
once a romance, a study in class distinctions, and most of all
a delightful comedy. Woody Allen, considered by critic David
Thomson to be America's most famous director (not
Spielberg?), puts himself into the heart of the action, frequently
ad-libbing with his signature put-on stutter and acting now, at
age seventy, as a young woman's father rather than as his
romantic interest. He's come a way since he played a character
who was "dating a girl who does homework."

Opening on a funeral for a dedicated British journalist, Joe
Strombel (Ian McShane) wherein his friends and colleagues
drink a toast to him "wherever he is," Allen switches to a foggy,
Bergman-esque scene in limbo, where Death, traditionally
attired and pretentiously silent, escorts the recently departed on
a journey. The stand-out passenger, none other than Strombel,
is to reappear on Earth from time to time, lobbying for his theory
that the Tarot Card serial killer is the unlikely Peter Lyman
(Hugh Jackman), soon to inherit gobs of land on an estate in the
Lyman hands for four centuries.

Strombel's unlikely alter ego is a college journalism, student,
Sondra Pransky (Scarlett Johansson). Sondra is nudged to
action by the late Joe Strombel while participating in a London
magic show thrown by Splendini (Woody Allen), whose real
name is Sid Waterman and who is to take on a second alias as
Sondra's dad. Sondra has taken on the aristocratic nom de
guerre of Jade Spens–determined to scoop journalists
throughout Britain by flirting with Peter Lyman in order to get a
close look at a man whom she, but not her "father,"believes to
be a serial murderer.

Hugh Jackman plays his role straight, an upright denizen of
British high society who has fallen in love with "Jade," who is in
truth nothing more or less than a young Brooklynite. The
twenty-two year-old Johansson, donning a pair of unflattering,
round glasses, lets out all the spunky stops that she suppressed
in her role as Griet, a peasant in Peter Webber's arty "Girl With
a Pearl Earring."

Not surprisingly, Woody Allen monopolizes the shtick, as he
portrays a skeptical and fearful neurotic who lets loose only
when on the stage, introducing his volunteer assistants "from
the bottom of my heart" and complimenting all by telling them
"You're a credit to your race." With sly verbal humor, he tells a
pair of British society types who ask him for his religion, "I was
brought up in the Hebrew persuasion, but converted to
narcisissm," and who cautions the assertive Johansson who
demands that he take dangerous chances, "My idea of
excitement is to have dinner without heartburn." Not likely,
though, since in treating his feisty companion to a birthday
dinner in an Indian restaurant, he indulges in Prawns in
Hydrocholoric acid.

Glad to have you back where you belong, Woody!

Rated PG-13 96 minutes 2006 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online