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Cyrus Adds Woody Allen's "Whatever Works" to His Left-Wing Christmas Viewing List
“Whatever Works”
This new Woody Allen film was originally written by him in 1977 and it really feels that way. While it’s not as good as either of the two films, it certainly feels like it would have comfortably nestled between “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall” partially because of the return of the old Allen device of a main character who has completely abandoned the fourth wall between himself and the audience. Larry David, the ideal Allen stand-in, just as easily could be Alvy Singer and indeed feels like a brother to him, both men incapable of experiencing any pleasure from the pleasurable things in life, both more comfortable spending his time complaining of being a smart man in a stupid world. I’d make a crack here about identifying with him on that last part, except David’s character, Boris Yelnikoff, is such an unbelievable misanthrope, I wouldn’t want the easily confused to mis-understand what I was saying.
Boris is an ex-Quantum Physicist who now makes his living in NYC teaching kids how to play chess while verbally berating them and everyone else he runs into for being a mental midget. His marriage ended when he woke up in the middle of the night with an existential crisis and tried to commit suicide by window jumping instead of having to stay with his wife. Years later Boris runs into Melodie (Evan Rachel Wood) a sweet and simple, to the point of stereotype, southern girl who is living in the alley by his house and begs him for food. He lets her in, and even ends up letting her stay with him and much to his, and all of his friends’ surprise, despite his constant belittling of her, she falls in love with him and they end up married. All is functional, if not certainly doomed, when Melodie’s conservative Christian mom Marietta (Patricia Clarkson) shows up on Boris’s doorstep looking for her, just having been dumped by her husband for her best friend. As you might imagine, Boris and Marietta don’t get on and soon, despite Marietta being drastically changed by the city just like her daughter was, she’s meddling and trying to find Melodie someone more chronologically suited to her.
I wasn’t surprised, with the casting of the always funny and brilliant Larry David, to find this was one of the funniest Allen films in recent memory. Ever since “Match Point”, Allen’s strength has lay in the dramatic but it was a pleasure to see the old Allen reemerge, even if it can only be for this one movie written so long ago by a very different man.
What else “Whatever Works” is, it’s an extreme liberal atheist fairytale. Which is to say, I adored it. While I can see why some of the critics would have dismissed it entirely for some of its adherence to cliche or its easy solutions, I found the story to be a charming fable about how teaching an old scrooge that just maybe that life, while it’s certainly not perfect, is a gift to be enjoyed and that no matter how much you think, and plan, and prepare, that most of it ultimately comes down to luck.
Surprising even to myself, I felt emotionally moved by the time the film reaches its holiday ending and despite quite a few claims by other writers to the contrary, personally have to enthusiastically give “Whatever Works” a BUY. It’s like watching the old Woody again, complete with great performances, a May-December romance, and a self-aware (but of course, completely self-deluded) main character. If you’re having a Christmas Day get together with your smart, leftist, and perhaps even a bit nihilist friends, “Whatever Works” might be just the ticket to inject some of that holiday cheer in those who don’t normally subscribe to such mirth making. As Boris says in the film, “...whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you can filch or provide, every temporary measure of grace, whatever works.”
Click Here to Buy Whatever Works [Blu-ray]
Comment
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Comment by Dr. Detfink on November 7, 2009 at 9:03am -
I enjoyed this film. Its classic Woody Allen where a nihilist cynical character is utterly devoid of any faith in anything or interest in anything outside his own meandering existence but no matter how much the nihilist tries to remove himself from any complications in life, he finds that there is something more to life.
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Comment by Mike on November 7, 2009 at 6:48am -
Not to mention that they throw the words "string theory" and "quantum mechanics" around as though that isn't just the default cliche that pretentious idiots use when they want to sound smart. ugh.
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Comment by Mike on November 7, 2009 at 6:42am
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By the liberal atheist's fantasy I think what you mean is the message "whatever works" as it pertains to unconventional polygamous or homosexual relationships, right? On that level I can agree with you for sure, but I just thought that if you're gonna do that, then why go the way of the cliche southerner coming to the big city, you know? Why not give us a more original premise too? My main problem with it was when the movie shifted gears from focusing on Boris to focusing on Melodie's family. I didn't appreciate he way her completely uninteresting stereotyped parents just show up and we are expected to care about them, and the changes their characters go through, because I felt as though I had seen those changes in similar characters before a zillion times. This uptight square from the country moves to the city and becomes a hyper liberal artist, and the homophobic conservative Christian NRA member is actually gay. The lolcat poster that reads "DIS IRONIES RITE?" (with which I'm sure you are familiar) came to mind almost immediately. It gets the point across but I just wasn't impressed by that third act. I would have liked to see a more meaningful plot twist in Boris' life. I just felt like he got up to the point where Boris and melody got married successfully and after that the whole thing started to resemble a high school play spliced with a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and seemed pretty empty. Maybe that's because, as you've said this was written a long time ago. Maybe it wasn't so typical back then, but for it to be released in 2009, I found it lacking, and I give it a rental at best.
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Comment by undead_oompa_loompa on November 6, 2009 at 10:30pm -
I saw this movie on a whim last summer. Walking out of the theater lobby after the movie I walked past George Lucas and his girlfriend at an ATM machine. It was a super-surreal experience.
As for the movie itself- I thought it was cute and fun. It wasn't mind-blowing, but I didn't think it needed to be. Boris was awesome.
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Comment by Guitaro Man on November 6, 2009 at 10:22pm -
I could go for some Larry David right now!
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Comment by Daniel Hubschman on November 6, 2009 at 2:49pm -
I was sad to have missed this in theaters; perhaps I'll take your advice and add this one to my collection.
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Comment by THE Don THE SHO 'GUN OF SPILL on November 6, 2009 at 2:13pm -
ill be back for those schitzas
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Comment by Jordan Cobb on November 6, 2009 at 2:07pm -
This sounds like a funny and charming film to me. So glad to see Allen get back to his roots.
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