Like anyone who watched the original Newsnight interview with the Duke of York, I came away dismayed.
How could he not apologize to the victims of his predator friend Jeffrey Epstein? How could Prince Andrew not “remember” meeting a young woman, Virginia Roberts, as she was then known?
Why was Prince Andrew so ridiculous, even comical? Remember the claim that he “medically” couldn’t sweat, the “not knowing” where the bar was at the Tramp nightclub, a nightclub he had visited many times before?
Andrew stayed at a sex offender’s home because it was “convenient,” he said. He was photographed in Central Park in the company of Epstein, then a convicted sex offender, because he wanted to say goodbye in an ‘honorable’ way.
The reaction, of course, was explosive when the BBC aired the interview in 2019. The prince’s trial in the court of public opinion concluded quickly.
‘Go away, girl!’ We all screamed as interviewer Emily Maitlis slowly skewered him.
Maitlis (played by Gillian Anderson) is intelligent, calm, hard-working, possessed of a photographic memory and the owner of a greyhound, who never leaves her side.
But after watching Scoop, the new Netflix movie based on software fixer Sam McAlister and his book about how to get the exclusive interview with Andrew, I’m starting to think a little differently.
The plot is the story of how the interview was secured, a sort of sub-Watergate mess of secret meetings, text messages and snatched photographs. And the topic, it goes without saying, is female empowerment in a post-MeToo world.
Sam (played by Billie Piper) is a working-class girl made good, a single mother who wears heels and leopard print.
Maitlis (played by Gillian Anderson) is intelligent, calm, hard-working, possessed of a photographic memory and the owner of a whippet that never leaves her side. Oooh!
Prince Andrew’s right-hand woman, Amanda Thirsk, took the blame for allowing the interview to take place (she later resigned, reportedly with a legal settlement). But she, played by Keeley Hawes, comes off as loving and motherly, and she only wants the best for her male child.
We are often reminded why these women (Sam, Emily and Newsnight boss Esme Wren, played by a wide-eyed Romola Garai) are out to catch this particular prince.
This film shows Andrew as human, but I’m sure that’s not what the Newsnight team intended.
We see Sam on the upper deck of a bus, looking at young girls chatting: note to the viewer, look at how carefree these girls are, but also how vulnerable.
We see the faces of the young women leaving Epstein’s New York mansion. The camera stops on them.
Photos of the victims are hung on the walls of the BBC offices, as if it were a police investigation unit and the objective was to catch and convict a murderer.
However, by showing all these practicalities, all that searching for a story to stay in a job, Scoop had a surprising effect on me… I began to feel sorry for Prince Andrew, something I never thought would happen.
There is a sense of something disreputable about the process, something close to duplicity.
What do we do when we buy a friendly cocktail for the target keeper, like Sam does with Thirsk? Or the self-serving line that this is Andrew’s chance to set the record straight?
The assurances that the filmmakers can be trusted and are, in fact, friends? Credentials swung under Thirsk’s nose and promises made that would never be kept?
Certainly the prince’s portrayal is quite accurate: all that rearranging of Kanga and Roo in their bed, the barking at the servants.
There’s a scene where Andrew remembers Mom doing his hair. On another occasion, he spies on Maitlis just before filming the interview, and exclaims in surprise and apparent disapproval: ‘Pants!?’
Were you hoping for a front row seat to a pair of sassy knees?
The production team wants us to see a jester and only a jester, exposing his huge ass along the way. It’s as if the filmmakers wanted to destroy it again.
(As it happens, the royal butt was played by a body double because Rufus Sewell, although he perfectly captured the princely cheeks and nobody-at-home look, couldn’t gain enough weight in time to play Andrew.)
Look out for the Newsnight team, ghoulish in this depiction, to watch the broadcast as it hits the nation.
Social media numbers proliferate before your eyes as if you were playing a slot machine in Las Vegas. Kerching! Jobs saved at the BBC. Paid mortgages. A Bafta, surely?
Yes, the protagonists are women, but that does not make the process on screen good or worthy.
Seeing it, one would have to conclude that the prince was “played.” Andrew emerges as an easy target: no matter how high the bars around the Palace were, he was left horribly exposed, playing with a bucket and spade in the sand, surrounded by people too sheltered, pampered or obscure to spot the shark lurking just in front of him. below. the surface of the waves.
Far from being trained in good public relations and optics, the prince has been instructed not to have any self-awareness. He truly believed that he had nothing to hide.
Like most people, I have been horrified by the way he has returned to a more public role, particularly by leading the Royal Family in a recent memorial service, filling the gaps left by his ailing brother, the King, and by the princess of Wales. How do you dare!
Rufus Sewell and Gillian Anderson star in this surprising adaptation of the BBC interview
But for me this film has appeased the anger, the indignation. I wonder if the real Emily Maitlis is wincing a little.
Andrew doesn’t seem evil, or even stupid, but simply the product of the institution into which he was born.
We all laughed when he told the nation he was “honorable,” but perhaps the uniform, rituals and medals have rubbed off on him. He has spent his life passing other people in the hallways without knowing their names or their function. He doesn’t think a dinner for 12 people is a ‘party’. Truly.
Most of all, it seems lonely.
The lack of acknowledgment or apology to Epstein’s victims was a huge omission.
But it also held a mirror up to the Royal Family, asking how relevant the monarchy is today. How appropriate it is to preach about homelessness when you live in palaces. Demand privacy, when advocating for openness, transparency and mental health awareness. Riding in a gas-guzzling helicopter while planting trees.
I wonder if Scoop will be screened for staff at Buckingham Palace’s famous movie nights? If so, I hope you applaud ‘Randy, Air Miles’ Andy, for still standing.
That’s what the Newsnight team does on Scoop: they applaud each other when the interview comes out. They bagged a shovel and then moved on quickly.
This new film shows Andrew as human, but I’m sure that’s not what the Newsnight team intended. You are welcome.