Ah, Wednesday is hump day, and right about now I feel like I am on that slippery slide down the other side of the mountain, because I can already taste the weekend approaching. Yesterday I rifled through my weekly to-do list -- laundry, grocery shopping, haircut, etc. -- and I'm not primed and ready for a relaxing weekend. Personally, this whole week I am slowly just getting caught up in a general state of geeking out. The State is out on DVD. Michael & Michael have issues, the new Comedy Central series from two of The State and Stella's funniest members (Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black, dudes), premieres tonight. And the San Diego Comic-Con is now only a week away, and I'm already brain-storming my plan of attack, scoping out the best panels (Avatar, anyone?) and the coolest post-show parties.
Anyways ...
As mentioned earlier in the week, I do still have a couple of big movie reviews up my sleeve for this week. To start with, I want to talk about the latest from the Woodmeister himself, Woody Allen. Yep, I'm talkin' 'bout Whatever Works.
WHATEVER WORKS Review:
- At this stage in the game, Woody Allen films aren't typically great movies in and of themselves, but when they are at least watchable, as this one is, they tend to be fairly fascinating journeys into the psyche of their iconoclastic creator. Whatever Works can be hamfisted, awkward, and unfocused, but at the same time, it's an interesting movie to watch. As with so many of Allen's recent films, the movie is often worth checking out simply because a Woody Allen film in 2009 is so, so different from any other movie released in that same year. It's a throwback, and sometime a painfully dated one at that. But this is certainly not in the style of a Match Point or Vicky Christina Barcelona, two movies that tried for a sleeker, more modern sensibility. In contrast, Whatever Works is set in New York, features a neurotic Jewish intellectual as its protagonist, and could probably just as easily have been made 30 years ago as today (and, in fact, the script is supposedly a couple of decades old).
What is unique about this one though is that it marks the first-ever match-made-in-comedy-heaven teaming of Woody Allen with Larry David. On paper, this seems like a veritable dream team - both comedians are two of the most distinct comedic writers of all time, both specializing in idiosyncratic, neurotic, often-times pessimistic characters.
However, there is undoubtedly a bit of shakiness in this comedy mash-up. For one thing, Larry David is such a singular personality that it's odd to see him playing the latest in a long line of Woody Allen proxies. Secondly, David as an actor is known mostly for the highly improvised Curb Your Enthusiasm - and to that end, it's kind of jarring to see him act in such a heavily-scripted, almost stageplay-esque film. It's funny because watching Whatever Works is almost like watching Larry learn as he goes. He starts out sort of wobbly in the beginning, sometimes seeming to recite his lines from memory rather than *acting* them. And yet, as the movie progresses, David seems to settle more and more into his role, and ultimately puts on a pretty good performance. Part of it is just that David is such a naturally funny and charismatic guy that he can pull off something like this and overcome that initial awkwardness. It helps that he is surrounded by a supremely talented cast. Evan Rachel Wood, for one, is superb in this one, yet another female actress who excels in an Allan picture, Wood takes a somewhat cartoonish character and really brings her to life. There's also Ed Begley Jr. as her repressed southern father, and Patricia Clarkson as her equally repressed mother.
Basically, the plot sees Larry David's curmudgeonly character, sporting the over-the-top name of Boris Yellnikoff, grudgingly befriend a naive souther runaway, the much younger Melodie, played by Wood. This being a Woody movie, the charmingly dimwitted shiksa ultimately falls for the older Jewish man's charms, and the two begin an unlikely relationship, as Boris slowly but surely teaches Melodie to understand and appreciate his fatalist views of life, love, and the universe. And soon enough, the god-fearing good-ol' gal absorbs some of Boris' east-coast liberalism. This is all fine and dandy until her dixieland parents come a-callin', and both are equally shocked and horrified by their daughter's transformation and her odd choice of romantic partner. But the big joke in Whatever Works is that, as soon as these middle-America conservative are exposed to the bright lights of the Big Apple, their repressed and secret desires come into full view. The punchline is that true happiness comes in all shapes and sizes, popular gospel and social norms be damned. In the end, you've got go with "whatever works" for you, no matter how strange or unconventional or unlikely it may be.
This larger philisophical point was to me the most memorable aspect of Whatever Works. You had to wonder: was this Woody's way of rationalizing or justifying his own somewhat unconventional love life? In any case, I think Allen makes his point in a simple-to-grasp and entertaining manner. It might be a somewhat predictable and heavy-handed series of twists and turns, but hey, it works.
That said, I can certainly see how some might get annoyed with this movie. It definitely feels a bit dated, a bit heavy-handed, and a bit out of touch with modern sensibilities. It also feels like it's covering well-worn territory for Allen to some extent, and what's more, it sometimes feels like Woody's strong voice as a writer and his desire to get all his random neuroses and philosophies into the script bogs down the actual plot of the movie. It does make you wonder - how many Woody Allen surrogates do we need? A movie like Vicky Christina Barcelona was refreshing in that it had actual, fleshed-out characters that weren't simply one man's persona transplanted into a fictionalized representation.
But here's the thing - at the same time, I appreciate the chance to spend a little time inside Woody's brain. It might, at times, be slow, awkward, anachronistic, etc. ... but it sure is a more interesting place to be than the average written-by-committee braindead blockbuster. It's for that reason alone that Whatever Works is, to me, well worth a watch despite its overall unevenness.
My Grade: B
- Alright, next up: Bruno!
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