Mr Black
Finally pulled this out after a couple of years and watched it again.
Well, I'm a big Woody Allen fan. Still trying to find some of his movies i haven't seen.
This one is,, well,, lets just say it's a Woody Allen film filled with Woody Allen cliche's.
Woody is the only director who can use the word 'intellectual' several times in his movies. He's also the one were no one ever has a normal job. They are all professors, writers, or artists, making it somewhat difficult to identify with the characters, because really,, if you hung around with people that speak like that all the time you'd probably hang yourself sooner rather than later.
It also features the Woody theme of a young girl falling for a much older, and rather plain unattractive man. Like that happens in every day life.
Either way, i'm still a Woody fan and enjoyed it. As Always.
osmangokturk
Boris is a kind of the central figure in the movie. He touches everybody and change their life and make them happy, his life changes as well. It's kind of that Boris a supernatural, he knows the meaning of life and knows everything as he know that this is a movie and some people are out there watching them. It should not be surprising that he is depicted as a genius physicist. That would understand the universe and abolish the religion.In the movie, while some's life change to a more untraditional and deviated sexual life, some's go in the "right" direction. Deep religious mother enters into a life of 2 husbands and a wife living together and father enters into a gay relation, whereas the daughter moves from marrying a very old man to a similar age boy friend. So what Woody Allen would want to tell us? Life is unhappy, but after some unexpected coincidences people find their matches ? Reason leads to the wrong matches while the chance produces happy relations? Both premises are broken by the case of Melody. Initially Melody seems to go via the chance and later continue with by match of reason and plan. But one can say Melody and her boy friend were the only young couple, other being elders. Anyway we can't conclude any outcome on these. We can't say that Woody tries to favor perverted relations, because what Boris and Melody finally do is quite acceptable to the society and conventional . I may say the movie is a harsh critic to religious dogmas and taboos and it highlights the the fact that chance could create a happy lives. At least it has a well organized down to earth story and playing is amazing.
ElMaruecan82
In "Manhattan", Woody Allen's character broke up with his girlfriend, a young student played by Mariel Hemingway. Despite reasonable arguments, her reaction showed that she genuinely cared for him, and it was such a devastating moment we didn't even care about their age gap. At the end, he realized he made a mistake, when confronting her again, she told him to have more faith in people. He got the message and smiled, if it's meant to work again, it will.Three decades later, "Whatever Works", conveyed a similar message within an unlikely couple: Boris (Larry David) and Melody (Evan Rachel Wood), Boris is probably 20 years older than Allen in "Manhattan" but there's no moral condemnation of any sort in the film whose title almost works as an alibi. "Whatever Works" is an invitation to free our mind from moral, social or religious prohibitions in the name of happiness. So not to be too cynical, as long as Melody was 21, it could work. But not without conditions, whatever was driving Melody's attraction toward Boris, it just had to be "good reasons" from our standpoint, were they?Melody grew up in a dysfunctional family with an overbearing God-fearing mother and a straight- laced yet unfaithful father, so she jumped at the first man who would be the perfect antithesis to the only adult models she had in her life: a quantum physics expert and an intellectual malcontent. Love is all about filling gaps, and the way the characters evolve in the film shows that one's only happy when he filled the right gap. Take the father (Ed Begley Jr.), he raised a family to hide a latent homosexuality, once he admitted it, he knew exactly what was missing in his life and so he was happy. Boris filled a temporary gap in Melody's life.The purpose of these two persons being together might seem ridiculous but "Whatever Works" puts the whole concept of 'ridiculous' into perspective. Something that seems preposterous or unacceptable for a character becomes a new standard of life and a source of intellectual or emotional blooming later. Yes, Boris can't stop bragging about his superior intellect or complaining about the superficiality and pointlessness of life, but maybe Melody was going through a phase where it had a positive effect on her, whatever works. If Melody's mother (Patricia Clarkson) wants enjoys a "ménage à trois", why should her daughter restrict her own sentimental area to a specific demographic group?It sounds rational to have Melody with one her age, but you can't reason with a film whose main protagonist committed suicide because he couldn't stand the perfection of his previous wife. Boris is such a complex character that his lack of appeal can't be reduced to the 'age' factor, the man is simply misusing his intelligence by being totally disillusioned about life and hostile toward any human being who can't reach his almighty mind, even throwing chess pieces on children he calls "inchworms". With Melody, he can't do the usual shtick because she admits his "superiority", so, the poor guy is disarmed. And coming from a cheerful and adorably naive little creature, well, if not his heart, Boris' ego couldn't say 'no'. Then they marry, he starts to appreciate her company, until she becomes indispensable to his own well-being. It's very revealing that in the second act, he starts smiling more and being kinder to her, the other side of the coin is that she also grew some maturity, enough to be able to think for herself and question her choices. Melody then understands she lived with Boris as a reaction to her past, and that move is typical from girls of her age. He was brilliant within his own grouchiness and she felt "completed" by that intellect she could plagiarize on his absence, with more or less credibility. But even by supposing they had to cancel their marriage, I wish it had been done differently.When the film started, I didn't know where it was going exactly, yet the story was absorbing in a way I just stopped caring and wanted to embrace the film's unpredictability with fun and enthusiasm. As ludicrous as it seemed that the two would marry, I was ready to accept it. Why should an old curmudgeon like Boris have an adorable and loving wife like Melody? Well, to every "Why", there's a "Why not"? Then the mother came and did her best to wreck the marriage, without even letting her daughter make the choice by herself, and even when she adopted a more free-spirited lifestyle, she was still trying to put that Randy James in the arms of Melody. That it worked, and easily, was a kind of letdown to me. I felt cheated.Good old Hollywood again, the whole film has been such a hymn to unconventional happiness that there was something frustratingly cliché about the pretty young couple. And when she had to tell the truth to Boris, he had that face that was saying "who am I kidding?". Melody had good reasons to leave him, but I wish it was because of a personal choice, not because she met your average handsome smooth talker, and certainly not her mother's protégé. At least, Boris has always been sincere with her, Randy gave his best shot, brought her to his boat, gave her wine, pretended stuff, it's not like he didn't exploit some of her naivety.All was well that ended well for everybody, and even Boris seemed to have found a soul-mate after a second suicide, but I wish there was 'a catch' with the medium or some punchline, not just a last- minute heart-filler. And I wish Melody had dumped Randy to enjoy her new independence, deserving more than the guy sent by her mother, another guy, another girl, two guys, or one of Boris' age for irony's sake, anything that would have called for 'whatever works' as a conclusion.
grantss
Woody Allen is back to doing what he is famous for - clever introspective comedy - and he still does it well. He detoured into making crime-dramas, three of them - Matchpoint, Scoop and Cassandra's Dream. All of these were good, and one, Matchpoint, was brilliant. Then he made a pretentious drama, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which wasn't good (but people seemed to like it just the same).Whatever Works sees him back to comedy, and back to his beloved New York (the previous four were all set in Europe). With the setting comes the standard Woody Allen neuroses, paranoia, depression and general philosophical musings that have been a hallmark of his films. The surprise is, for once he doesn't play the neurotic, paranoid, depressed lead character. No, this time Woody Allen stays behind the camera, and Larry David, of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame, takes the part.Larry David does a great job in the role. He was born to play the curmudgeon, and play the curmudgeon he does, to the limit. It can wear a bit thin at times, but mostly he is screamingly funny. Supporting cast are great too. Evan Rachel Wood is convincing as the dumb innocent Southern belle, and Ed Begley jr and Patricia Clarkson are solid as her parents.Plot is good. Maybe a bit underdeveloped - some things happen too quickly and some characters seem too flexible - and some things seem a bit trite, but it works in the end. The dialogue, however, is great. Almost as good as Allen in his heyday of the late-70s and 80s. Biting, caustic, clever.A very funny movie.
