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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/38417/full/38417/nothing-works-in-woody-allens-latest-bit-of-blather/ <br /><br /> <b>Nothing ‘Works’ in Woody Allen’s latest bit of blather</b> <br /> Thursday, June 25, 2009 | by michael fox <br /><br /><p>Woody Allen must think it’s still 1929, when moviegoers were so amazed and beguiled by talkies that it scarcely mattered what banalities came out of the actors’ mouths.</p> <p>But audiences have become more sophisticated in the ensuing decades, and are annoyed rather than entertained by repetitive dialogue that fails to advance the story or add shading to the characters.</p> <p>In his latest timewaster, “Whatever Works,” 80 percent of that lazy discourse is uttered by an unrepentant Manhattan misanthrope with a pathologically overinflated sense of himself. “Charm has never been a priority for me,” brags Boris, a divorced Jewish physicist, in what passes for self-awareness.</p> <p>It’s as if Allen is testing to see just how unattractive and unlikable he can make his screen alter ego and still win us over with his witty and insightful writing. He gets a failing grade for “Whatever Works,” even if it doesn’t quite reach the nadir of such recent fiascoes as “Scoop” and “Anything Else.”</p> <p>Allen originally wrote the screenplay intending for the amiable Zero Mostel (who died in 1977) to play the lead. For some reason, he dusted it off after all these years and cast the curmudgeonly Larry David (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”).</p> <p> <div class="capDivLeft" style="width: 360px;"><img alt="Awhatever" class="left" height="280" src="http://www.jweekly.com/images/uploads/z_photos_2009/y06_26_09/Awhatever.jpg" title="Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood star in “Whatever Works.”" width="360" /> <div class="caption">Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood star in “Whatever Works.”</div> </div> “Whatever Works” is steeped in Boris’s condescension and his fervent belief in random chance and blind fate. Allen used to be very aware of how his intellectual and moral arrogance came across onscreen, and he’d temper his protagonist’s superiority with self-deprecation and insecurity. Mostel would have made a cranky but loveable Boris, but David’s endearing moments can be tallied on two fingers.</p> <p>“Whatever Works” essentially starts with the retired Boris expounding to the camera on his fatalistic philosophy of life. (It’s the rare character who works for a living in Allen’s movies, even though they live in pricey places like Manhattan or London.)</p> <p>After just a couple of scenes we’re wearying of Boris’ act, so Allen plants a bright-eyed runaway from Mississippi under his steps. Boris lets Melody (Evan Rachel Wood) stay with him for a while, then a while longer, continually insulting her “inchworm” taste and intelligence in the guise of educating her.</p> <p>In due time, when their relationship has taken on a certain regularity and routine and the movie needs a kick in the pants, Melody’s mother Marietta comes a-knocking. Patricia Clarkson invests the character with enough energy and vitality to lift the film out of its mean-spirited rut for a while, although the pace flags with the inevitable introduction of an age-appropriate suitor for Melody’s affections.</p> <p>Each new character generates a minimal amount of hijinks and momentum, with Allen’s empty contrivances reaching their apex with the arrival of Marietta’s estranged husband (Ed Begley Jr.). The endless barrage of dialogue can’t mask the film’s bare-bones narrative structure, which is on par with a solo vaudeville routine, with humor almost as broad.</p> <p>What’s most dismaying, though, is how badly Allen’s comic instincts, from his timing to his knowledge of his audience, have decayed. Yes, it’s a 30-year-old screenplay, but there are moments in “Whatever Works” so tone deaf that they make one fear that Woody Allen is en route to becoming an embarrassment.</p> <p><br /><strong>“Whatever Works”</strong> opens Friday, June 26 at the Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco, Albany Twin in Albany, Piedmont Theatre in Oakland and Camera 7 in San Jose.</p>

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