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Rating: Back to Manhattan, finally. After some not-so-happy trips by the famous and controversial American director, Woody Allen returns to breathe the air of home, finishing a screenplay that he had already started in the '70s, but was halted due to the death of Zero Mostel (1915-1977), the actor then designated by Allen for the leading role.
Just by looking at the poster, however, you understand that you are facing a work different from what Allen at the end of the '70s could have conceived. It is vividly colored with pastel tones, complete with a bench, protagonists, and Manhattan in the background, which will remind many of the director's untouchable works (we are talking about the European version of the poster). Of course, we can talk about artistic evolution, simply about accessibility (I'm sure many would have avoided the film if it were in black and white) and bring up many other reasons, but we can just as surely say that the same director, at the end of the '70s, would have rendered his beloved city in black and white, as he himself loved to define it.
Overlooking these first considerations, I admit to having gone to the cinema with some skepticism before having seen anything (hence the talk of the poster, developed while waiting for room 3 to clear out), but I also admit to being pleasantly surprised at the end of the screening.
"Whatever Works" is a comedy that picks up the threads of the more inspired Woody Allen, whose character traits are exaggerated and poured into the character of Boris Yelnikoff (excellent performance by Larry David), thus offering a cynical element and, apparently, superior to society, in contrast with the latter, in which we see again those symbolic characters of an era made of appearances and contradictions, anxiety and fear of conventions and beliefs accepted almost always for the sake of social integration.
The protagonist, the already mentioned Boris Yelnikoff, is a cynical and solitary thinker, chronically depressed and confidently superior to any other "worm" in society; after divorcing his rich wife who maintained the "unacknowledged Nobel" (he is actually specialized in quantum mechanics and vainly repeats his lack of a Nobel nomination), he moves into a dilapidated and rundown apartment, maintaining himself by giving chess lessons to children, always treated poorly (even going so far as to throw the chess pieces in disapproval), but his life changes radically when he meets Melody (Evan Rachel Wood), a not particularly bright girl who manages to enter the protagonist's home as a homeless girl looking for food, starting to adopt his philosophy of life and love him, despite the gruff Boris's initial reluctance. With the arrival of the mother (a bit forced, to be honest), many social and psychological mechanisms begin to stir, creating a condition of instability that resolves in the transformation of Melody's mother from a submissive, ignorant woman into a freak artist and sexually liberated, while the daughter will decide to leave Boris for a young and handsome man much closer to her needs than the old cynical genius. Boris will attempt suicide (for the second time, the first took place during his previous romantic experience) and it will happen that...
Perhaps I've revealed a little too much of the plot, I admit, but that's the only way I could fully analyze the film.
If the message sent is extremely dramatic (man lives everything in a way that it must work, for social vanity and gratification, so "whatever works"), it's important not to be misled by the happy ending that seems to have resolved every situation. In reality, as the protagonist himself specifies, in his last monologue (there will be several, during the film, directly addressed to the audience in the theater), everyone, genius or stupid, cannot avoid the "whatever works", no matter how coherent one might be. As if to say, quoting a great musician: "in the fight between you and the world, stand on the world's side".
The apparent happy ending, the return to a sensible film, the good performances and the often aphoristic, quick, and effective humor, left me pleasantly satisfied. It's a pity for some criticizable aspects of the film that don't allow it to be fully enjoyed: in the second part of the film, for example, there is a notable drop in rhythm and some stale situations that weigh down the viewing, in addition to the inclusion of aspects or characters superfluous to the film (for example the entry of the sexually confused father, which reinforces the aspect of man as constrained by the society in which he lives, but if it hadn't been there perhaps the film would have benefited); moreover, the apparent finalism to which even the cynical Boris yields (the character falls a bit short at this point), if on one hand represents the defeat of man to the "whatever works", on the other hand, sounds really like a b-grade comedy happy ending.
In any case, "Whatever Works" is a more than decent film; if on one side there is a lack of the freshness of the Woody Allen from the golden days, on the other hand, the film flows, with content finally up to par and humor capable of making anyone laugh.
3.5 rounded up to 4 if you're not a demanding "Allenian", in this last case it can reach 3.
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