Whatever Works
2009
**
Director: Woody Allen
Cast: Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Henry Cavill, Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley, Jr., Michael McKean, Conleth Hill, Olek Krupa
Boris Yelnikoff is a retired academic genius who fails to see anything good about the world and the people around him (he has a limp from a failed suicide attempt to prove it). His resolve is put to a test by Melodie, a young, attractive and ignorant woman who escaped the Bible Belt to come to New York City. Woody Allen wrote this disposable comedy back in the 1970s, and it feels like I've seen this several times in the intervening years. To be fair, the first half is quite sweet and funny, but when Melodie's parents show up, the whole thing becomes extremely tedious. Christian fundamentalists are a rare sight in a Woody Allen film, but he only allows them a scene or two until they become the same cultured liberals like all his other characters. Ultimately, none of the people in this story resemble real-life human beings. Larry David plays Boris with the same grating style he made his own on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and he gets all the best lines. There is an incredible number of oneliners, but weeding through the mass to find the gems is an enhausting task.
