Whatever Works
By David Napier at 23 June, 2010, 12:00 pm
Woody Allen’s 39th studio feature in 43 years is a marked departure – in retrograde – from his uneven post-2005 comeback trail.
After wobbling from the peculiarly meditative Match Point to last year’s gorgeously conceived Vicky Cristina Barcelona, he has dug out a script from the halcyon late-1970s period when he was considered powerhouse and returned to his old nerd-intellectual stomping ground, back in the city that never sleeps.
The resulting film is infuriating, anachronistic, and a qualified success. Umpteen contrivances, an unattractively nihilistic world-view, and yet another old grouch/young flower romance from the doggedly determined Allen that beggars belief in any context.
Yet Whatever Works survives myriad and seemingly infinite obstacles to somehow emerge a roundly entertaining lark.
The bulk of credit for this should land on the doorstep of Larry David. By his own admission not out to be an actor and preferring to dwell within a distinct comfort zone on screen, he is actually terrific as Allen-lite physicist Boris Yellnikoff, amping up his CYE alter-ego as the beleaguered and aggressive Jewish cynic in a role that could have been tailor-made for him.
Evan Rachel Wood, likewise, does an impressive job of playing unschooled Southern belle Melodie St. Ann Celestine as sweet and enquiring, where a lesser actress may have come off irritating and forced.
All the cast, in fact, get noticeably stuck in to Allen’s skewed Manhattan bohemia, including the ever-reliable Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr. as Melodie’s God/world-fearing hick parents, although the great Michael McKean is wasted in a barely written role.
Maybe you’ve guessed? The script – perhaps surprisingly – is the letdown.
Changing the outdated cultural references before shooting has not stopped the thing from feeling utterly throwback, both in its dialogue and second-generation perspective. It’s snappy enough, and sometimes properly gigglesome, and sneery comic putdowns like “inchworm” are to be warmly embraced, but Allen’s distinctively 70s-era cynicism and typical self-involved ponderousness can make for a potent, persistent stench.
Fortunately, this never derails proceedings entirely, and with the retro ambience comes an irresistible charm that offsets Boris’s pompous aphorisms, in a way that is ultimately hard to dislike. Which is why Whatever Works… erm, works.
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What’s the best Woody Allen film? Discuss it in the forum.
Give it up Woody. Q: How many times can you make the same film? A: How many has Woody Allen made so far?
In fairness John Carpenter has spent his career doing the same, he’s just not as prolific, and the Thing is just so good, you kind of forgive it.
The question is do the likes of Annie Hall, Manhatten, Sleeper, and to a certain extent even films like Small Time Crooks, make up for the other 30 odd Woody’s churned out?