Whatever Works (M). Running time: 88 minutes. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson
American actor Jason Alexander half-jokes that, early in the life of the 1990s sitcom Seinfeld, his portrayal of the hard-luck George Costanza transformed from a Woody Allen impersonation to a Larry David impersonation. He learned that aspects of the character's story had been lifted directly from the life of David, the show's co-creator. Thereafter George's nervy neurosis took on a belligerent, narcissistic dimension; a cheeky tribute to David.
David was kinder to himself when, later, he came to play himself in his other great sitcom, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Curb's Larry David character shares traits both with George and with Seinfeld's title character, Jerry, but he has redeeming qualities not possessed by either of those entirely self-serving personas. Usually (though not always) he means well. He attracts trouble through his ignorance of, or contempt for, the minutiae of social etiquette.
In Woody Allen's Whatever Works, the character chain closes on itself, as David portrays a more acerbic version of Allen's trademark neurotic heroes. He is Boris Yellnikoff, a lovable misanthrope, physicist and self-proclaimed genius (he was 'almost nominated' for a Nobel Prize). Following a divorce and a failed suicide, Boris walks with a perennial limp and a nasty attitude. He has no patience for ... well, for anyone. He earns a buck berating the child prodigies to whom he teaches chess. In short, he is like Curb's Larry on a really bad day.
Boris expounds a blackly comic, fatalistic philosophy, particularly in the realm of romantic love. When dimwitted runaway Melodie (Wood) drifts into his gruff orbit, she provides him not so much with an object for affection, but a bottomless hole into which to pour his endless existential bile. Melodie mistakes his obstinately bleak outlook for true genius and, wouldn't you know it, they fall for each other. Unlikely, sure, but what charm the film has comes from its contrasting Melodie's dumb cheer with Boris' OTT misery.
On the other hand, as a filmmaker, Allen is at his worst when he's being too clever. There is a recurring conceit in Whatever Works, that Boris, because of an expanded world view, is aware of something the other characters are not: that there is an audience watching their every move. His monologues to camera, directly addressing this 'audience' (to the bewilderment of his fellows), are initially humorous,