This 2006 comedy by Woody Allen has been heavily criticized in numerous newspaper/Internet reviews for reasons that remain a mystery to me. Among the main arguments for such unfavourable judgments the following seem to outnumber all the rest: it lacks meaning, being just a trifling time-killer at best; the plot is unconvincing and abounds in holes; there is nothing original in it — all that this film has to offer has been already seen somewhere else and better done, too.
Well, all these things I completely disagree with and I will try to explain why by outlining at least three narrative layers of this film that are consistently present throughout and make “Scoop” a delightful movie to watch: the first layer is the one at the surface level — a laughable comedy with traditional one-liners, funny situations and a murder mystery; the second layer has to do with references to death and myth; the third layer, which suggests itself in so powerful a manner that one can’t help noticing it, however unwillingly, is related to ageing and the resultant exclusion from full-fledged sexual life.
This division is, of course, conditional and is only used here to give structure to the analysis; there can be no impermeable borders between the different layers of a single picture, to be sure.