Misanthrope: Noun -- One who hates or mistrusts humankind.
Plague: Noun -- A widespread affliction or calamity, especially one seen as divine retribution.
Plague: Verb -- To pester or annoy persistently or incessantly.
Although they can occasionally possess one degree or another of amusing sarcasm, most people generally avoid misanthropes like the plague, especially as the latter often feel that others are a similar pestilence in their world. Accordingly, and at least in real life, such people usually don't have many others hanging around them. On TV and in the movies, however, and mainly due to only have to be around them for a short duration and with some sort of humor usually enveloping the attitude, viewers are often drawn to these sorts of annoyed, pessimistic and/or haughty characters,.
Writer/director Woody Allen is probably hoping that will be the case regarding his protagonist in "Whatever Works," the filmmaker's return not only to observational comedy about romance and other matters of life, but also his old stomping ground of New York City where he shot most of his films until a recent international detour that continued through last year's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."
As in some of his similarly themed films of recent, Allen stays behind the camera and instead opts to use a stand-in to play, well, a Woody Allen sort of character. This time around it's Larry David, a seemingly perfect fit, not because he looks or sounds like Allen (although there are obvious similarities), but because the star of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and co-creator of the legendary "Seinfeld" TV sitcom arrives with just the right sort of irritated, self-centered, sardonic and comically fatalist mindset already in place.
In fact, the sort of characters the two usually play are so similar that it might have been interesting had Allen cast himself in the film to play opposite David as two miserable old codgers with a penchant for dropping witty if sarcastic remarks about their view of themselves, others, and the world in which they live.
In theory, it could have been a blast watching the two trying to one-up the other in terms of who could be the greatest malcontent of the bunch. In execution, however, it might have been a case of unsavory overload, with one such character being plenty and two just doubling our misery.
Instead of taking the double-whammy approach, Allen has David playing a former physicist turned verbose and grouchy misanthrope who doesn't hesitate to point out what's wrong with people when he's not acting in a belittling or demeaning way toward them. Some will likely be put off by that behavior, but David gives that just enough of a comedic touch to keep most of it from being too offensive.
The one who doesn't seem to mind at all is a young woman (Evan Rachel Wood) who's run away from her ultra-religious folks (who ultimately show up in the form of Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr.), encounters David's Boris Yellnikoff, and finds him fascinating despite his demeaning 'tude toward her.
It's never at once believable, and seems like yet another attempt by the filmmaker to prove that young women can be attracted to old, cerebral geezers like him. But it's also designed to allow Allen-David to deliver various humorous bits including his similar disbelief that something like this could happen to him. In fact, the lone highlight of the pic is the observational dialogue, some of Allen's best of recent.
The rest, however, treads very familiar grounds, with nothing terribly novel or insightful, and the breaking of the fourth wall by David (where he talks directly to the camera and thus the viewer) ultimately doesn't add anything to the mix. Nor do third act developments regarding the girls' parents suddenly seeing the light -- thanks to Boris' life mantra of doing whatever works to make you happy -- and discarding their fundamentalist beliefs.
Fitfully amusing, but uneven and without enough deep humor to pave over the misanthropy, elitism, religion bashing and the fairly creepy and clearly never once believable May-December romance pairing, the film tries to operate via its titular philosophy, but it's unlikely "Whatever Works" will work for everyone. It rates as a 4 out of 10.
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