Given the oh-so-vulnerable title of Woody Allen’s latest film, Whatever Works, it seems all too easy for its skeptics to cleverly play that name against itself.
Oh well, here it goes anyway: This time around, it just feels as if Allen sat back and settled for whatever works.
There are enough delightfully quirky characters, bizarre narrative turns and wittily penned lines of dialogue to like that an Allen (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) virgin may enjoy the film without any qualms. But Whatever Works plays as a more off-kilter version of Allen’s 1977 classic, Annie Hall, and the film feels bit stale because of it.
Thus is the curse of crafting a cinematic style so distinctive that well-versed audiences could blindly wander into the theater and identify the director minutes into the movie. Keeping Allen’s idiosyncratic filmography in mind, it’s hard to appreciate Whatever Works as more than a fairly unmemorable entry, neither a stellar addition nor a notable detriment to his extensive catalogue of films.
Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm) seems like he was born a character in an Allen movie, so it is only appropriate that the long-time Seinfeld producer and writer’s first lead role in a feature comes under Allen’s guidance. A neurotic Jew who loudly brodcasts his brazen social commentary and falls for a younger woman, David’s character, Boris Yellnikoff, is what results when the line between character, actor and director becomes incomprehensibly blurred.
And Allen sure gives David plenty of chances to shine. Aside from plenty of those condescending rants David executes so well on Curb, the 62-year-old also gets to deliver a few continuous, fourth-wall breaking monologues. With just David’s face, the camera and Allen’s renowned dialogue, it’s a dream scenario any actor would be envious of.
The script, which Allen penned in the 1970s before pulling it out of a drawer, tossing in some modern cultural references and shooting it, mostly follows the abrasive Yellnikoff during the opening act. After a divorce and failed suicide attempt, Yellnikoff is left with an empty apartment, noticeable limp and grim disposition. While he spends his days endorsing his intellectual superiority (his berating children during chess lessons is priceless), it all comes across as a ruse to mask his own considerable insecurities.
When a young, lovingly dim-witted Southern darling named Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood, coming off her criminally underappreciated performance in The Wrestler) runs away from home and ends up in New York without a place to stay, Yellnikoff lets her sleep at his apartment for the night.
One night then becomes two, and two nights becomes weeks. Despite Yellnikoff’s repeated assertion his high intelligence and her slow-thinking naivety could never mesh, the 60-something and 20-something become romantically intertwined.
About halfway through the film, Patricia Clarkson (Elegy) pops up as Celestine’s worried-sick mother. Her character’s eccentric personality and unexpected arc give the movie a jolt of energy, much in the same way Penelope Cruz does when she storms onto the scene halfway through Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Later on, Allen also introduces us to Celestine’s father (Ed Begley Jr., Pineapple Express), who carries an intriguing storyline of his own. The negative side of all this additional character development in the film’s second half is David is largely lost in the chaos, disappearing for long stretches. When he isn’t on-screen, Whatever Works loses considerable energy.
Riddled with sexual angst and existentialist undertones, the movie often feels like the comedic twin of Charlie Kaufman’s mind-twisting Synecdoche, New York. That said, though, Allen’s presence behind the lens is as strong as any actor’s in front of it.
In fact, a stationary shot of two characters walking and talking their way up a New York City sidewalk toward the camera is identical to a similar take staged early in Annie Hall. And much of the humor in Whatever Works still dwells on the touchy topics of race, religion and gender that Allen has always thrived on tackling.
After 32 years, if nothing else, you know what you’re going to get out of the guy.
tfloyd1@umd.edu
RATING: 3 stars out of 5
