"Scoop" is a Woody Allen film where Woody Allen plays a wonderful supporting role creating the kind of laughs people love him for.
Scarlett Johansson is a journalism student who is undecided about a life in orthodontia, the family business. This indecision is the predominant personality aspect of her character Sondra Pransky. Like a modern Hamlet, Sondra is visited by the ghost of a journalist with the "Scoop" of a lifetime. She is directed to get the story and get it right. Her indecision keeps her from knowing the truth: Is or can this man, Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman) be a murderer as he romantically sweeps her away?
The heart of the movie and the fun part is when Sondra enlists a vaudevillian magician Syd Waterman (Woody Allen) to discover the truth of the "Scoop." Seeing Johansson and Allen's characters pretending to be father and daughter in what becomes a buddy film is what makes the film worth watching. The romance between Johansson and Jackman seemed so thin compared to the dynamic relationship between Johansson and Allen. The father-daughter thing worked wonderfully well. I just could not seem to get enough of these two. It seemed so refreshing to have a relationship between an older man and a younger woman that did not include romance. It truly was just right.
Magic, death, the after life, and comedy seem to be the dynamite combination for Woody Allen. It's a combination he used before in the "Oedipus Wrecks" portion in the movie "New York Stories" to great hilarious heights.
"Scoop" may not be the greatest Woody Allen movie. But it does play to Woody Allen's strengths.
Scarlett Johansson is a journalism student who is undecided about a life in orthodontia, the family business. This indecision is the predominant personality aspect of her character Sondra Pransky. Like a modern Hamlet, Sondra is visited by the ghost of a journalist with the "Scoop" of a lifetime. She is directed to get the story and get it right. Her indecision keeps her from knowing the truth: Is or can this man, Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman) be a murderer as he romantically sweeps her away?
The heart of the movie and the fun part is when Sondra enlists a vaudevillian magician Syd Waterman (Woody Allen) to discover the truth of the "Scoop." Seeing Johansson and Allen's characters pretending to be father and daughter in what becomes a buddy film is what makes the film worth watching. The romance between Johansson and Jackman seemed so thin compared to the dynamic relationship between Johansson and Allen. The father-daughter thing worked wonderfully well. I just could not seem to get enough of these two. It seemed so refreshing to have a relationship between an older man and a younger woman that did not include romance. It truly was just right.
Magic, death, the after life, and comedy seem to be the dynamite combination for Woody Allen. It's a combination he used before in the "Oedipus Wrecks" portion in the movie "New York Stories" to great hilarious heights.
"Scoop" may not be the greatest Woody Allen movie. But it does play to Woody Allen's strengths.