• Courtesy Of Peter Mountain/Netflix
• Gillian Anderson is tough as nails as British anchor Emily Maitlis in this drama about a disastrous royal interview.

While we were all preparing for an eclipse of the sun, Netflix brought us a ripped-from-the-headlines drama about the eclipse of a son — specifically, a royal one. Released on April 5, Scoop is a dramatized version of the story behind the 2019 BBC "Newsnight" interview that would eventually result in Prince Andrew's withdrawal from public life. It was directed by Philip Martin ("The Crown") and based on the book Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC's Most Shocking Interviews by Sam McAlister, the booker who made that interview happen.

The deal

It all starts with a determined paparazzo (Connor Swindells) catching a fateful shot of Jeffrey Epstein (Colin Wells) with Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell) in Central Park, thereby establishing the two men's friendship. He also snaps shots of a very young woman leaving Epstein's nearby apartment.

Nine years later, while trying to fill an interview slot, McAlister (Billie Piper) stumbles on a press release for one of Andrew's projects, a pitch fest at Buckingham Palace. This is the sort of lightweight affair that "Newsnight," with its formidably prepared host, Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson), doesn't usually cover. McAlister's colleagues side-eye her taste for celebrity stories and even call her the worst insult of all: "a little bit Daily Mail."

But McAlister has been reading up on Andrew's link to Epstein, who already has a record as a sex offender. She forges a relationship with the prince's private secretary, Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), and tries to convince her that a BBC interview could help clear Andrew's name. After Epstein is jailed again — and dies in custody — McAlister is in a prime position to swoop in and snag that interview. No longer a puff piece, it's now a major scoop.

Will you like it?

Perhaps Charlie Proctor, a pundit on what was then called Twitter, summed up the Prince Andrew "Newsnight" interview best: "I expected a train wreck. That was a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion level bad." With his bizarre and contradictory excuses, his fusty talk of "conduct unbecoming," and his failure to show empathy for Epstein's victims, the prince dealt a grave blow to his own — and the monarchy's — reputation.

Andrew's disastrous showing is one of those real events that merit the label of "stranger than fiction." It would be no mean feat to make a dramatized backstory of the interview as riveting as the actual footage, but the makers of Scoop don't shoot that high. What they have done — with success — is craft a story fast-paced and compelling enough to bring legions of new watchers to the real interview, as its growing comment section on YouTube can attest.

Two deliciously mannered performances anchor the film. Wearing prosthetics, Sewell keeps his portrayal of the prince teetering on the edge of parody. We see his many facets: the aging playboy who still tries to coast by on charm, the out-of-touch blowhard, the etiquette-bound aristocrat. Andrew maintains his dignity even when issuing orders to the staff about the arrangement of the plushies on his bed.

Watching the actual interview, one wonders at Maitlis' superhuman restraint as she allows her subject to incriminate himself. Here we see how calculated — and inspired — her approach was. Anderson plays Maitlis as a snappy, confrontational newswoman who wouldn't be out of place in a screwball comedy; she's whippet-thin and literally has a whippet. This performance, too, verges on caricature, but when the interview finally occurs, we feel the real anger beneath her composure.

McAlister, the film's nominal protagonist, isn't fleshed out beyond some conventionally "likable" qualities: She's a loving single mom, she sticks out from her staid colleagues like Elle in Legally Blonde, and she wants to do journalism that makes a difference (though what that means to her isn't explored). The mousy Thirsk, who is the gatekeeper of Prince Andrew and the target of McAlister's wiles, also remains underdeveloped as a character. Still, these two contrasting women have a palpable rapport. There's an irreverent kick to their first scene together, when McAlister shows up to the palace plastered with Chanel logos and takes a selfie, and Thirsk isn't a whit scandalized by this crassness — she's seen it all.

Scoop raises still-relevant questions about the role of a monarchy in a modern democracy — its performative aspects, its commodification, its sheer silliness. As an institution, the old-school journalism represented by the BBC is itself far from untouchable. (Scoop unfolds against a background of mass layoffs.) In 2019, these two lumbering dinosaurs faced off, and the press won the day. But the fact that Twitter wits delivered the verdict was, perhaps, a dark foreshadowing of things to come.

If you like this, try...

"Surviving Jeffrey Epstein" (2020; Freevee, Lifetime, Philo, rentable): This docuseries prominently features Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who made the allegations that Prince Andrew faced in the "Newsnight" interview, along with the testimonies of other victims.

"A Very English Scandal" (2018; Prime): If you liked the borderline absurdism of Sewell's performance, you'll also enjoy Hugh Grant's turn as a closeted member of Parliament who was tried in the '70s for allegedly plotting to murder his ex-lover. The makers of the series are now producing "A Very Royal Scandal," which covers the same terrain as Scoop from Maitlis' point of view.

She Said (2022; Peacock, rentable): This drama focuses on the other most notorious case of the #MeToo era — Harvey Weinstein — and details how New York Times reporters convinced reluctant survivors to tell their stories on the record.