Woody Allen is secretly the most prolific director in the last 30 years. He's pumped out one a year, totaling over 30 movies since 1980. Unfortunately, his best work was in the 70s. He's made a few good movies since, but his last legitimately funny movie was Deconstructing Harry, which is still a gem. He should have saved some of those jokes for his more recent work.
I'm building to my main point: Whatever Works sucks. If I were going to make puns and attempt clever wordplay, I'd say "Whatever Works Doesn't!" or refer to the main character as Boring Yellnikoff, instead of Boris. (I'm hilarious.) I'll spare you my feeble attempts at humor.
This time around Woody Allen is played by Larry David, which seems like a natural fit, even though Larry isn't the best actor in the world. I don't think the movie's awfulness is his fault, but he doesn't help matters. Allen makes his character a genius physicist who's had a mental breakdown, gotten divorced from a near-perfect wife, lives in squalor, and has no hope for the future or real desire to live. And yet he's also a hypochondriac, which seems strange. He wants to die but is incredibly afraid of dying.
Despite his protestations, a young homeless girl, Evan Rachel Wood, weasels her way into living with Boris. It's a Woody Allen movie, so naturally the too young, impressionable southern girl falls for the old angry guy. I expect these types of things, but in this movie I'm not buying it. I'm not buying that this girl would be even remotely interested in listening to Boris complain 24-7. In fact, nothing about Wood's character makes any sense to me, nor is it believable. Her accent seems fake, her mannerisms, her motivations. It's all bad.
Eventually, David and Wood's characters marry, and then her parents start showing up, one at a time. First her mother, who's been dumped by her husband, shows up, gets involved with one of Boris' friends, and ends up living as part of a threesome with two dudes. She goes from conservative church woman to ho in a matter of months. Then Wood's father shows up, played by Ed Begley, who poorly tries for a southern accent, and he ends up gay, after a matter of days. Woody's message appears to be that New York City will turn any good Christian into a sodomite in less than a year, and that it's a good thing.
While these other characters are experiencing growth and change in a matter of movie minutes, Boris doesn't grow or change at all. He's just the smug a-hole who's right about everything. There's nothing I can understand about his character, which is why the movie is boring. Normally, a Woody Allen character is obsessed with sex, which is something any man can identify with. Here, it seems that Boris might hate sex. His character is essentially a disillusioned version of Sheldon on Big Bang Theory, only not funny. Something Woody Allen wrote is less funny than a sitcom character. That's just sad.
The ultimate sin of Boris's character is that he spends 90 minutes complaining about the futility of life and at no point does he offer a reason to continue. This isn't the first movie Woody Allen has futility of life as a theme, but he usually offers something to live for, something to explain why he hasn't killed himself. In Whatever Works he doesn't really bother. Maybe with the ending he implies that love is the answer, but that love is random? By that point, I couldn't say I cared to find out. I was too bored and depressed.
Each scene in the movie is a set up for a joke. It seems like every scene ends in a punchline, but it's forced and unnatural. The characters will be in conversation, Larry David will make a joke, wisecrack or smartass comment, and the movie cuts to a new scene, not bothering to finish the conversation. The fact that I notice this immediately takes me out of the movie.
First Viewing: 2+1+1+2+1 = 7