Disgraced princes, dirtbag conmen, and a PI with a past rule this weeks streaming options

Always Be Streaming - 6 April 2024

Alright, here’s what you really need to pay attention to this weekend.

At the top of a lot of viewers watchlist for the weekend is new Netflix film Scoop, bringing to the screen (again, I guess) an infamous Prince Andrew Newsnight interview.

Reviews are a bit mixed, which is always going to be inevitable when it comes to a story about the royal family - especially from British reviewers. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw really wasn’t into it.

I thought this blurb from Variety’s Guy Lodge was good in giving some context to the production:

Underlining the enduring impact of the story, “Scoop” is the first of two projects this year inspired by the interview. The second, the Amazon miniseries “A Very Royal Scandal,” starring Ruth Wilson and Michael Sheen, will boast Maitlis’ own blessing as an executive producer. Martin’s film is differently authorized, handing the same credit to the less celebrated party whom it takes as its effective protagonist: Sam McAlister, the former “Newsnight” booker who doggedly secured the Prince’s participation in the interview, and from whose memoir Peter Moffat and Geoff Bussetil’s script has been drawn. It’s an instructive shift in perspective, making “Scoop” the story of a scrappy underdog fighting two mighty British institutions — not just the House of Windsor, in all its impenetrably protected prestige, but the BBC itself, initially presented here as a staid, even classist organization, hostile to intrepid outsiders.

Also worth a watch is Ripley, the new Netflix adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley. The book was already adapted into the exceptional 1999 Matt Damon film (directed by Anthony Minghella), meaning any future adaptation will always be framed around that film.

Longtime Hollywood scribe (and renowned script doctor) Steve Zaillian writes and directs the show, which was always going to be a good sign that the series would be pretty good. And it is.

Zaillian makes a few bold choices for the adaptation, which gives it its own flavour. The most obvious is the decision to film the show in black and white. This is, supposedly, because author Patricia Highsmith would have conceived a screen adaptation in the 1950s as being in black and white. While I think that’s a bit of a silly reason, the show does look stunning.

Casting the older Andrew Scott (he’s 47) in the lead role ages up the character by 20+ years, which is a change I wasn’t so keen on. It makes the grifter more desperate and, well, frankly, a bit more of a loser. Also, there’s something a bit weird about his mark, Dickie Greenleaf, still being unmarried in his mid 40s swanning around Europe. Certainly not unheard of in the mid 1950s, but it still reads as unusual - especially with longtime girlfriend Marge seemingly not going anywhere.

I enjoyed watching Apple TV+’s new Colin Farrell drama Sugar, but…