(L-r) Hugh Jackman as Peter Lyman, Scarlett Johansson as Sondra Pransky posing as Jade Spence, and Woody Allen as Sid “Splendini” Waterman posing as her father in Focus Features’ Scoop, © 2006.
As surprising as it sounds, the only other Woody Allen film I have seen besides Scoop was Sleeper. For those of you who don’t know, Sleeper was a 1973 comedy, written, directed, and starring comic genius Woody Allen, about a man who is frozen in liquid nitrogen and reanimated in the future. His anxious and insecure onscreen personality and his consistent slapstick, quirky remarks, and actions make him one of the best one-screen comedians of all time.
Sondra Pransky (Scarlett Johansson) is an American college journalist vacationing in London, staying with her friend, Vivian (Romola Garai). On an afternoon with nothing to do, Vivian and she accompany Vivian’s little brother to a local what appears to be vaudeville house. When a cheesy musician with card tricks, flowers, and dematerializer box, shows up, Sid “Splendini” Waterman, asks for a volunteer and Sondra is called to the stage. Inside the dematerializer, basically a simple Chinese magic trick, Sondra is visited by the spirit of recently departed journalist, James Strombel (Ian McShane), one is always know for getting his stories.
Strombel, back from the dead, has got the scoop of the century and plans to have one last success before he spends an eternity with death. He informs Sondra that Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman), son a of local lord, is the infamous local Tarot Card Killer, and is known for murdering short brunette prostitutes. Later that day, Sondra meets back up with Sid and tells her about her amazing encounter in his act. The two decide to make an attempt to verify the facts by having Sondra as “Jade Spence” fake a drowning at a private swim club, and introduce Sid as her father. Though Sondra is putting on an act that she in love with Lyman, she actually begins to fall for him and her investigation crosses her mind as something very silly. Of course, Sid refuses to believe this and with some crazy antics, manages to find out a few things.
I guess as the writer, director, and star of one of your own movies, you can truly express the character and mood of the scene any way you want to. Why? Because you have all the power of creative control. Sometimes that helps, many actors and actresses create hilarious characters they plan to use in the film, put are forced to change because the director does not approve. One can wonder what kind of a film we would see if al actors and actresses kept the character they wanted. Johnny Depp’s character in The Pirates of The Caribbean films was much too edgy and R rated and had to be toned down a bit.
Woody Allen has produced another character quite similar to many of his other films such as Sleeper, but also presents a small salute to himself by creating a magician character. In his early childhood before he truly started writing jokes, he used to impress friends and neighbors with magic acts and card tricks.
The humor in his screenplay is so equally consistent that you even find yourself laughing more when some of his jokes are used more than once. Sid is so used to telling volunteers how much he loves and respects them, that he even finds himself doing it in real life. “I have the utmost respect for each and everyone one of you and you’re a credit to your race … and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.” Even the serious matter of death is funny to Allen and the after life is nothing more than sailing away for eternity on a barge captained by death and one can only try to entertain themselves to make the time pass. The humor though, truly makes up for some parts of the predictable story line that of course Lyman is the Tarot card killer. We’re going to be lead down a road that he is, then he’ll be not so suspected, then he’ll be let off, and then we’ll find out he was.
Scarlett Johansson, I have to say the most beautiful actress working today, is also especially funny. Though she appeared in Matchpoint, which I unfortunately have not seen, she can also be quite humorous paired with Allen and his righting. “Please stop telling people that I sprang from your loins!”
Hugh Jackman’s character however isn’t bad, but it almost appears he can’t fully perform because he’s playing a stereotypical English rich-kid with horses and does whatever he can to charm the hell out of women.
Despite a somewhat predictable story line and an actoring putting on the act of an actor acting (whoa…) not that well, this is still one of the most hilarious films I have ever seen in my career of viewing films, and is easily the most hilarious film of the year. I just know I’m going to be walking down the street tomorrow and a random line from the movie is going to pop into my head and I’m going to break out laughing. “I was born into Judaism but quickly converted to narcissism.” Okay, I need to stop laughing, I still have to write the MPAA rating and running time. Haha, narcissim…
Rated PG-13 for some sexual content.
Running time 96 minutes.