Whatever Works (2009)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Woody Allen

Writer (WGA):

Woody Allen (written by)

Release Date:

1 July 2009 (France)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Plot:

Attempting to impress his ideologies on religion, relationships, and the randomness (and worthlessness) of existence...

Plot Keywords:

Religion | Runaway | Dog Walker | Older Man Younger Woman Relationship | Photography

Cast

Larry David	...	Boris Yellnikoff
Adam Brooks	...	Boris' Friend #1
Lyle Kanouse	...	Boris' Friend #2
Michael McKean	...	Joe - Boris' Friend #3
Clifford Lee Dickson	...	Boy on Street
Yolonda Ross	...	Boy's Mother
Carolyn McCormick	...	Jessica
Samantha Bee	...	Chess Mother
Conleth Hill	...	Leo Brockman
Marcia DeBonis	...	Lady at Chinese Restaurant
Evan Rachel Wood	...	Melodie St. Ann Celestine
John Gallagher Jr.	...	Perry
Willa Cuthrell-Tuttleman	...	Chess Girl
Nicole Patrick	...	Perry's Friend
Patricia Clarkson	...	Marietta

Also Known As:

Untitled Woody Allen Project (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sexual situations including dialogue, brief nude images and thematic material.

Runtime:

USA:92 min (Tribeca Film Festival)

Country:

USA | France

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital (Mono)

Certification:

USA:PG-13 (certificate #44832) | Canada:14A (Ontario) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba) | Sweden:Btl | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | France:U | Norway:A | Singapore:M18 | Hong Kong:IIB | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Chinatown, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Sony Pictures Classics

Trivia:

The role of Boris Yellnikoff was original written for Zero Mostel. After Mostel's death in 1977, Woody Allen set the screenplay aside. However, with a potential actor's strike during 2008-9, Allen chose this old screenplay to be his next film.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the scene where Randy bumps into Melodie at the clothing store, she has pink nail polish. In the next scene at the boat, she does not.

Quotes:

John: [as he kneels down to pray] Lord I've sinned, please forgive me!
Boris Yellnikoff: Why do all the religious psychotics wind up praying in my doorstep?

Movie Connections:

References Ted Bundy (2002)

It works for me.

"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.