Whatever Works
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YEAR: 2009. STARRING: Larry David, Adam Brooks CATEGORY RATINGS: Storyline: . OVERALL RATING: |
| . PLOT SUMMARY: “Whatever Works” Does Not. Though marking a return to his home turf after making half a dozen pictures abroad, “Whatever Works,” Woody Allen’s new Manhattan-based comedy, recycles old ideas, jokes, and characters of the helmer’s oeuvre circa the 1980s and 1990s. “Whatever Works” is not a bad picture, but considering that it’s only 92 minutes long, the comedy is not offbeat enough, as it pretends to be, to qualify as really funny or witty, and casting TV’s Larry David “(Curb Your Enthusiasm”) as the misanthropic protagonist might not have been such a good idea after all, because he plays a variation of his small-screen persona in a role that Woody Allen could (and would) have played 10 or 15 years ago in his sleep. Moreover, coming right after Allen’s return to form, the buoyant romantic comedy, “Vicki Cristina Barcelona,” which was more commercially popular than the five former Allen pictures together, is particularly disappointing, recalling the smaller, unsuccessful U.S. (”Melinda and Melinda”) and U.K. productions (”Scoop”). The movie, which received its world premiere as opening night of the ninth Tribeca Film Festival, will be released by Sony Classics in late June as counter-programming to the summer’s top gun, but it’s doubtful whether it would be embraced and liked much by critics or audiences. |
