As long as he continues to make movies, Woody Allen will forever be caught up in a particularly strange relationship with the very people who are paid to review his films. On the one hand, film critics have lionized even the lesser works of his early career ("Bananas") for no real reason other than the fact that Woody really, really reminds them of themselves. It is because Allen's old films have achieved the distinction of classics that America's critical establishment seems to be forever disappointed by what he offers up. It isn't enough that he can make a brilliant film like "Match Point," where he managed to stretch himself and dissect the caste system of modern-day London. Unless he's doing a scene-for-scene remake of "Annie Hall" or "Manhattan," he's going to get clobbered.
It does not take a genius to see why film critics feel protective of Woody Allen. He made it seem plausible that the nervous, self-doubting guy with big dreams could get the girl. For film critics who are, by their very definition, nervous and self-doubting, it was like looking in a slightly more dysfunctional, slightly more successful mirror.
Of course, there's something else at work, something nobody wants to admit: watching Woody Allen's change reminds baby-boomer film critics of their own mortality. There was a mini-uproar when Woody cast himself as the romantic lead opposite Julia Roberts in "Everyone Says I Love You" and Helen Hunt in "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion." When critics complained there was no way for him to get those women anymore, what they were really saying was, "There is no way I could get those women anymore."
In his new film, "Scoop," Woody pulls another move bound to agitate critics even more. He abandons all traces of coolness in favor of playing the fussy old man. All traces of the intellectual rock star are gone. In "Scoop," he plays an aging Borsch Belt illusionist named Sid Waterman, forced to use his moderate talents to entertain ambivalent London audiences. It's a delightfully well-timed slap in the face to the critics who have turned against him, as if he's finally revealing the punch line to a great joke — "Guess what, guys: that guy you wanted to be for so long has turned into a hack."
It should be said that, along with being a wonderfully layered hate-note to his detractors, "Scoop" functions well in and of itself. This may be Woody's best comedy since "Everyone Says I Love You," and, paired with last year's deadly serious "Match Point," the film forms an incredibly well-drawn portrait of Britain's caste system.
The plot is as follows: while performing onstage one night, Waterman (performing under the name of the Great Splendini) enlists young student-journalist Sondra Pransky (Scarlett Johansson) to assist him in an illusion. While trapped in Waterman's chintzy magic box, Pransky is visited by the ghost of recently deceased journalist Joe Strombel (Ian McShane, "Deadwood"), who, in the opening scene, escapes from a boat on the River Styx to deliver the scoop of a lifetime to the first lucky journalist he can find. His scoop is indeed a big one — the prostitute-slaying "Tarot Card Killer" who is stalking London is, in actuality, blue-blood politician Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman).
Sondra ends up dragging Sid into the investigation after he is unfortunate enough to be standing next to her when Strombel reappears, like any nervous editor, to check Sondra's progress with the story he handed her.
Sondra and Sid embark on a campaign to try to get closer to Lyman and investigate his guilt. They put up an elaborate ruse, pretending to be a wealthy father-daughter combo from Palm Beach (although Sid has trouble remembering if his alter-ego is into real-estate or oil and also has a habit of doing card tricks at English garden parties) in order to get close to the Lyman family. Against Sid's wishes, Sondra finds herself falling for Peter in spite of mounting evidence that he may very well be a serial killer.
The set-up is similar to the lackluster 1993 caper "Manhattan Murder Mystery," but is made fresh by the inspired pairing of Scarlett and Woody. Indeed, this may be the best buddy thriller of the summer.
As a comedy, the movie elicits laughs with typical Woody lines like, "I see the glass as half full, but of poison," or, "I was born into the Hebrew persuasion, but as I got older, I converted to narcissism." However, unlike some of his recent efforts, Allen harkens back to "Sleeper" era visual gags to great effect. The sight of an increasingly terrified Woody packed into a Smartcar trying to navigate the English countryside on the wrong side of the road, is an absurdist mini-masterpiece. Or the brilliantly edited set piece where Sid and Sondra manage to thoroughly bungle an attempt at home invasion. And then there's the sublime pleasure of the out-of-leftfield moments like when Sid admonishes Sondra at an Indian restaurant for "hardly touching your cobra salad," or the final fate of Woody's character, which achieves a kind of bleak comic brilliance.
When the AFI does its tribute to Woody Allen's career, "Scoop" may very well be a footnote in a career which has produced the likes of "Manhattan," "Broadway Danny Rose" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors;" however, in the dog days of a summer, full of aggressively unappealing movies, a movie as bright and bouncy as "Scoop" certainly feels like a major accomplishment.
4 out of 5
