Movie Summary of Whatever Works by Michael The Moviegoer.
WHATEVER WORKS = ***1/2
“Woody’s Working It Again”
All hail Woody Allen’s return to New York. After several films shot in Europe, Allen slips comfortably back into Manhattan like a pair of old familiar blue jeans. His self-assured style is evident as he churns out his 40th film in as many years with “Whatever Works” which also proves to be one of his funniest films in years.
Larry David, of TV’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, stars as a chronically pessimistic old grouch. A self-described genius who once narrowly won a Nobel Prize, David’s character is abrasive and unlikeable when we first meet him. Probably because he talks to the audience as though he were in Allen’s “The Purple Rose Of Cairo”. Allen’s humor here is so dark that we’re not sure at first whether to laugh or become clincally depressed.
But as is usually the case in Woody Allen’s films, the supporting characters save the day. Evan Rachel Wood plays the young naïve girl who convinces Larry David to marry her!!! (Well, Woody Allen is the master of the May-December romance.) Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr. are her very-Christian parents from the Bible Belt. The scenes in which New York transforms their beliefs are the most hilarious.
Wood’s is the most colorful character Allen has written since Mira Sorvino’s Oscar-winning porn star/prostitute in “Mighty Aphrodite”. She deserves the same sort of awards attention that so many of Woody Allen’s actresses have earned.
Some perspective. Evan Rachel Wood was born in 1987. Her parents were barely out of kindergarten in the early 70s when Woody Allen made “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex”. Yet here she is in 2009 playing the love interest to a man nearly Allen’s age. Hey, whatever works! But it’s unfortunate timing that this film is being released in the same week that Wood has been publicly commenting on her break-up with rocker Marilyn Manson. She’s recently been quoted as saying it’s a mistake for women to date men more than 20 years older.
Allen wrote the script for “Whatever Works” back in the 70s which explains why it’s as good as many of his best films from that decade. But it also allows for today’s critics to attack the film as being “dated”. Kinder critics might use the word “retro”. But if “Whatever Works” had actually been made and released in the 70s, it would have been hailed as an Allen masterpiece. Perhaps a good way to look at the film today would be to imagine it as a rare discovery of a long-lost Woody Allen film from the 70s that was never released. If it were true that such a film existed and it was recently unearted, critics would be falling all over themselves to praise it.
DVD Companion: Woody Allen’s films have been hit-and-miss in recent years. But Even Woody’s own fans may have missed one of his shoulda-been hits in 2003. The criminally overlooked “Anything Else” is the perfect companion to “Whatever Works”. It’s another New York romantic comedy about dysfunctional relationships with winning performances from Christina Ricci and Stockard Channing.
Michael The Moviegoer
