Whatever Works

Greetings again from the darkness. Such an odd experience ... watching an old Woody Allen for the first time. Well that's the best way I can describe this. The script was from the 70's and certainly, Mr. Allen made a few changes to make it fit the 21st century, but still we can't help but think it's 1977 all over again ... especially since Woody has been away from NYC for awhile.

Larry David is cast in the "Woody Allen" role and does his best to bring his Curb Your Enthusiasm delivery. The only problem, his character here, Boris Yellnikoff, is just a very bitter, abusive, negative force ... so even some of the best comedic moments are a bit tainted by the mean spiritedness.

Evan Rachel Wood has been a star in the making since "Thirteen" and really brings a new dimension not just to her career, but also the film. Her runaway southern belle is a flat out hoot. When her parents (Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley, Jr.) arrive, we gain some insight into Allen's thought process ... he thinks NYC is the be all and end all ... and can even enlighten those southern "crackers".

Mr. Allen has always been obsessed with three topics ... dying, sex and intellect, and all three are on prominent display here. He really has an innate ability to exaggerate life subtleties and slap us upside the head in his films. I believe his message is that the big picture of life is overwhelming and disheartening, but as individuals, we can each find happiness.

I saw this movie in a packed cinema and the audience loved it to the extent that many applauded at the end. So I came home, looked it up in IMDb and read some of the review by professional film critics. What I found helps to explain why nobody reads papers anymore and why professional movie reviews are increasingly irrelevant. The critics drooled all over themselves for No Country for Old Man -- a ridiculous blood bath where the bad guy can see through walls, magically find people on the run, and kill repeatedly without raising much more that a mild interest from the local and state police. Yet many of these same critics think the characters in this new Woody Allen film aren't realistic. God save the film critics.

Back to the film. I can't remember the last time I laughed this hard at the movies, and I wasn't alone. It takes special talent to direct a movie that is so dependent on perfect comic timing to work, and the actors in this film hit their marks consistently. If there is character in this movie that shouldn't be the subject of study in an abnormal psychology class, I missed them.

If you care about intelligent movies for grown-ups, then you need to support movies like this one.

First, just so you know, I'm writing this review from France... but I'm from the U.S. That, so you don't disregard this as yet another Franco-Allen fan (they've exchanged their Jerry Lewis passion for Woody over here, and sanction everything he does).

Also, disclaimer: I really like and respect Woody Allen's work and I'm also an ex New Yorker. With a Jewish wife, no less. So no, okay, I'm not unbiased.

All that said... I fully agree with "boyden" in that this movie is far better than the reviews it gets from critics. On rottentomatoes.com, for instance, this garnered a 45% rating. That's on par with non-hits like "Gigli" etc.

Yet, the dialogue was great... Larry David was as close to a Woody Allen substitute as anyone has come in a long time (Allen always casts people he can direct to sound like him, it seems)... and it made me crave that old New York, before the money of the recent pre-bust boom turned it into a homogenized has-been of a city.

Evan Rachel Wood, by the way, was overwhelmingly charming. And I thought all the other acting was excellent too, in the way people act in Woody Allen movies... which is ALWAYS different from what it is in other films (you occasionally get those moments where the lines are crafted or improvised rather than somewhere in the middle).

At any rate, it's amazing the size of the disconnect between fan response and the response of the critics... who, in my opinion, should go watch Annie Hall and Sleeper and the like so they can remember again.

"Sometimes a cliché is finally the best way to make one's point." Boris (Larry David)

Woody Allen's witty movies may seem clichéd (love does indeed conquer all in most of his romcoms), but they do make a humanistic point couched in Allen's pessimism and nerdiness. With Larry David playing another Allen alter ego, Boris, a self-proclaimed genius, this misanthrope in Whatever Works is the best characterization of Allen in his recent movies. The movie works for me as the smartest, most enjoyable of this summer with a message countering Allen and his alter ego's world-weariness.

It doesn't take long to look at David's work co-creating Seinfeld and starring in his own Curb Your Enthusiasm to see that this world-weary worry wart is a good choice to play an Allen-like New York Jewish intellectual. Unfortunately his lack of real acting talent is a hindrance, especially when he slips into shouting many of his lines. Yet when David plays himself more than the stuttering Allen, he becomes relaxed and believable. When David speaks to the audience several times, the sincerity is powerful.

Allen wanted Zero Mostel to play this part; his death in 1977 put the script in mothballs for decades. As an accomplished Broadway and film actor, Mostel underscores David's limited acting range.

The conceit of Whatever Works is that older Boris in his 60's hooks up with twenty-year-old Southern Melodie (Evan Rachel Wood) despite his genius mind rejecting the whole affair as trite but his heart going with "whatever works." Throughout, Allen juxtaposes the Southern innocence with Northern experience creating a situation where NYC actually transforms the Southerners into urban sybarites, no better exemplified than the transformation of Melodie's mom (Patricia Clarkson) from bible thumper to artist humper with avant garde photos and multiple lovers. Even her ex-husband, John (Ed Begley, Jr.), has a NYC epiphany of the sexual kind.

Although Allen has his characters looking for love with results that will remind you of his Everyone Says I Love You, the sweetness is replaced with a philosophy that encourages searching out whatever works because of the transitory nature of love and life.

The mixture of love and cynicism allows deep appreciation of irony and the transformative nature of experience.

Well, my first review for the IMDb. I picked one that I thought I was not going to like, but I like Woody Allen, so I gave it a shot.

I thought I would not like Whatever Works, because I read and heard some of the critics' negative reviews.

So, the first ten to fifteen minutes or so into the movie, I'm thinking that Larry David is better at improvising, as on his own show, than doing someone else's lines, albeit Woody Allen's.

But then, as usually is the case with Mr. Allen;s movies, I got hooked half way through. I got hooked because it was very well done. The story, the direction, the acting - yes, Larry David was perfect for this. It was a risky casting move on Mr. Allen's part, but it worked beautifully.

I like it also because Mr. Allen interjects philosophy in all of his movies. He courageously exposes himself, allows us to hear his thoughts and does these things by seducing us with entertainment.

Excellent work.

The only thing I wasn't crazy about was the sort of "tying up" philosophy about how we should go with whatever works. Such a happy ending. Why?

That said, id didn't interfere with my overall appreciation of the movie.