Whatever Works: Another Mediocre Comedy from Woody Allen

How many mediocre comedies can one filmmaker produce? Add "Whatever Works" to the incredibly long list of Woody Allen films that make you chuckle a few times and groan 100 times. 

Especially groan-worthy is Allen's new leading man, Larry David, who plays Boris, a neurotic misanthrope living in squalor in Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood. Every scene with David is irritating and horrendously unfunny. It's almost shocking how terrible David is.

Nearly as bad is Evan Rachel Wood as the teenage runaway whom Boris finds sleeping in a filthy alley. The girl, named Melodie, begs for help and Boris eventually invites her in. Initially Boris only has disdain for her, incessantly calling her an imbecile, but in time he sees her bubble-headedness as charming. Melodie ends up falling for this creep who is her grandfather's age, and a romance ensues. Thank heavens there are no love scenes.

Woody Allen's revolting fascination with pedophilia continues to astound. It surprises me that young actresses are still willing to participate in Allen's pedophilia fantasies.

Mercifully, Boris and Melodie only dominate the first half of the film. "Whatever Works" gets much more watchable when Patricia Clarkson makes her entrance, playing Marietta, Melodie's mother. Clarkson breathes life into her character with earthy authenticity. Her lines are all delivered in a vibrant way. Her character is from the deep South, and Clarkson parodies southern Lady-hood nicely and without meanness.

The greatest pleasure I got from "Whatever Works" was watching Marietta blossom in Manhattan. She takes up with Boris's artistic friends and displays an innate gift for photography, which they nurture. Before long, she has thrown off her carnation-pink suits and starts dressing in black like a classic bohemian. She also explores her sexuality and ends up moving in with two men in a happy menage-a-trois.

Melodie's father (Ed Begley) enters the fray at the tail end of the film and begins to explore new sides of his personality as well. Melodie grows also, finally seeing the preposterousness of her attraction to Boris.

In the end, everyone ends up happy, even the loathsome Boris. But along the way, the audience has to endure more groans than laughs. Even when Clarkson brings the movie to life, her character never moves beyond cliche. So even in the far better second half of the film, there's not much more than charming mediocrity.

A note on photography: Allen experiments with a new look, having everything appear washed out, almost devoid of color. I applaud him for trying new approaches to cinematography, but this experiment is a disaster. The visual look is one of the worst I've ever seen on screen.