I know it is not as fashionable to say this as it once was, but I love Woody Allen. After exiling himself to London and Barcelona for a handful of films, the native New Yorker has returned to his Manhattan roots where he belongs (which isn’t to say he didn’t make a couple of great films during his banishment). True, Allen is known to repeat himself, but when was the last time you turned down that particular red wine, that beloved vacation spot, or that favorite meal just because you didn’t want to repeat yourself? We come back to Allen for the same reason we return to anything we find irresistible — because we love it. But don’t mistake Whatever Works for a nostalgia piece. It was written nearly 30 years ago and recently dusted off. If it feels and sounds like old school Woody Allen, that’s because it is.

Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David) is a legend in his own mind. Once a respected professor of quantum mechanics who was almost nominated for a Nobel Prize (he claims), Boris gave it all up to throw himself out a window in an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Now the curmudgeon, who drags a bum leg behind him like some sort of Upper West Side Frankenstein’s monster, spends his days teaching kids chess in the park. Like many Allen avatars before him, Boris is a pessimistic misanthropist, a neurotic narcissist, a snarky, wisecracking, know-it-all one-man chorus who blathers ad nauseam about humanity’s shortcomings to anyone who will listen. With no comprehension of civil etiquette, Boris’ diseased worldview, which sees only injustice, disorder and corruption, is like that of Allen himself, though more aggressively stated.

One night Boris trips over a damsel in distress, teenaged runaway Melody St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood), a Mississippi beauty queen fleeing her repressive Southern upbringing who needs a place to stay until she can get on her feet. Against his better judgment, Boris lets Melody in. Melody is a dewy-eyed nymphet, who makes up for what she lacks in the brains department with perkiness. (She is very perky.) She is impervious to Boris’ gloomy barbs for no other reason than she does not perceive them as insults. To Boris’ shock, Melody begins falling in love with him. What is, perhaps, even more shocking is that he returns her feelings, after a sort. They marry and are just settling down into something approximating domestic bliss when Melody’s Bible-thumping parents, Marietta (Patricia Clarkson) and John (Ed Begley Jr.), show up, setting off a series of romantic entanglements that will touch the lives of everyone.

Allen has never been shy about breaking the cinematic fourth wall, that invisible barrier between the action onscreen and the audience observing it. Allen himself has addressed the audience in several of his films, just as he has David do here, though never has it done it as self-consciously as this. David, who has made a career out of playing curmudgeons, makes a remarkable alter ego for Allen (although he stutters often in the beginning, stalling for time to recall the densely packed, idiosyncratic cadence of Allen’s script). The only reason Allen didn’t play this role himself is that, once again, he would be repeating himself. Be it onscreen in Manhattan or in the tabloids with his stepdaughter, we’ve already witnessed Allen’s obsession with the May-September romance. But it is the women and not the men who principally shine in Whatever Works, particularly Wood and the always impressive dynamo, Clarkson.

There is something musty, quaint, unfortunate and not a little bit enthralling about Allen’s unshakable conviction that Manhattan is the center of the universe and anyone from outside its sphere of influence is ignorant and backward. Not that hayseeds like Melody and Marietta can’t move there and immediately begin drawing from its curative powers. But as non-judgmental as Whatever Works ultimately turns out to be (advocating tolerance for the diverse choices people make to find happiness) it is not above acknowledging that all of its characters, bohemian intellectuals and Southern hillbillies alike, are equally imbecilic.

As Whatever Works unfolds, we realize that mocking other people’s choices is not the intent. The film ends with a plea: we evolve into better people through our interactions with each other. Therefore, do whatever works, so long as you don’t hurt anybody. There’s enough pain and heartbreak in this world ruled by randomness and luck that you should grab ahold of love wherever and however you find it. Such a sentiment may be something of a trite cliché, just the sort of thing Boris would rail against, but then, even he admits that, “sometimes a cliché is the best way to make one’s point.”

© Copyright 2009 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.