Review of Whatever Works (2009) by Geoffrey T — 11 Apr 2012

Woody Allen has an overt formula to his comedies. It's recognizable by now, and I don't have a particular distaste for it. It works well most of the time. His films also seem kind of random. The beginnings and ends of his comedies feel like the dashes in Emily Dickinson poems; like we're only getting some arbitrary taste of the chaos going on in the whole existence of the lives of these characters.

I'm not sure that's a flaw as much as it is a style. It may seem impersonal or distancing to some, but I don't feel like it represents that. This is a particularly quirky film about a self-proclaimed genius and misanthrope who spends most of his time absorbed in his arrogance and neurosis, occasionally coming out to disparage people he believes are "cretins" or "earthworms.

" These include children, anyone with any sort of right-wing viewpoint, any musician who hasn't been dead a 100 years, etc. I get the idea that this is the character Allen most identifies with.

He meets an extremely impressionable Southerner who buys into the idea that he's a genius, and I think that's why he keeps her around. Eventually a bunch of other characters with complicated lives are introduced and their stories are wrapped up rather quickly and simply, which is the film's largest misstep.

Though, as this film openly suggests, you're supposed to accept the good things that are dropped in your lap, and this has more than enough to offer. It's frequently funny and well-written and well-acted.

It's insightful in an obvious but charming kind of way. It purposely doesn't condemn or excuse the actions of any of its characters, leaving the complexity to be thought about by the viewer. That's enough to compensate for the contrivances, I'd say.

I'm not sure why this film left so many critics cold, honestly.