Nice to find Woody Allen returning to the New York he knows so well, even if Whatever Works hardly measures up to his previous standards. It is a gentle comedy about luck, chance and love in which Larry David grimly pursues some sort of satisfaction in life.
David plays Boris, a part Allen would once have taken — a crotchety old Jewish misanthrope who constantly thinks he’s about to die, suffers from panic attacks, knows he has failed in his career (he came close to a Nobel Prize for Quantum Mechanics), and in his marriage to the rich and beautiful
Jessica (Carolyn McCormick). He breaks off from a philosophical conversation with a group of friends to address the audience directly with his tale of doom and gloom.
After a failed suicide attempt, he spends his days insulting the children unfortunate enough to learn chess with him. Facing what he regards as the chaos of the universe, he recognises only that he is more intelligent than anyone else.
When he takes in a young Mississippi runaway (Evan Rachel Wood) whom he finds on the streets, he is prepared to mock her as a brainless twit, too innocent to survive alone in the big city.
Amazingly, she falls for him and, despite his doubts and his disinterest in either women or sex, they marry.
This is little more than a fairytale, punctuated by the grouch’s cynicism and his gradual realisation that chance has led him to a good thing — until the sudden arrival of the girl’s mother (Patricia Clarkson) puts the cat among the pigeons. All’s well that ends well, however, when our anti-hero tries suicide again and falls on the woman of his dreams (Jessica Hecht). Whatever works.
The film is not as fun in its second half as it is in its first. It becomes increasingly silly, in fact, but the cast plays the game for Allen, sometimes a little desperately, and David makes an excellent curmudgeon. Such a man could be called an idiot savant if that wasn’t an insult to the breed.
Whatever Works
Cert: 12A
