Whatever Works

If you’ve ever wanted to see a man look directly into your soul and tell you that you’re an idiot, Larry David is your guy. In Whatever Works, he doesn't just break the fourth wall; he treats it like a personal grievance. He plays Boris Yellnikoff, a world-class misanthrope and former quantum mechanics professor who believes the human race is a failed experiment. When he stares into the lens to lecture us on the futility of existence, he’s not just playing a character—he’s channeling every person who has ever been stuck behind a slow walker on a narrow sidewalk.

I watched this on a Tuesday night while my neighbor was loudly practicing the tuba, which felt like a very Boris Yellnikoff way to experience cinema. It provided the perfect discordant soundtrack to a film that argues life is essentially a series of unpleasant noises occasionally interrupted by a decent sandwich.

The 1970s Script in a 2000s World

There is a reason Whatever Works feels like a transmission from another era: it actually is one. Woody Allen wrote the screenplay in the 1970s, originally intending it for Zero Mostel (The Producers). When Mostel passed away, the script sat in a drawer for thirty years until the 2007-2008 Writers Guild strike made Allen dig through his archives. The result is a fascinating time capsule. It’s a 2009 movie that carries the DNA of Annie Hall but is filtered through the cynical, post-9/11 lens of the early 21st century.

Landing Larry David was a stroke of genius. By 2009, Curb Your Enthusiasm had already conditioned us to love a "social assassin," and Boris is essentially Bernie Sanders if he gave up on politics and decided to insult children’s art projects instead. Watching him navigate a "modern" New York that he clearly despises is a joy, mostly because David doesn't act so much as he simply exists at a high frequency of annoyance.

A Southern Invasion of Manhattan

The plot kicks off when Boris begrudgingly takes in Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood), a runaway pageant queen from Mississippi. Wood is a revelation here, playing a character who is essentially a golden retriever in a sundress. She’s naive, she’s sweet, and she absorbs Boris’s nihilistic worldviews like a sponge. The chemistry shouldn't work—it’s a sixty-something crank and a twenty-something runaway—but because the film treats their "romance" as a practical arrangement rather than a grand passion, it avoids feeling truly creepy. It’s just "whatever works."

The real comedic engine, however, revs up in the second act when Melodie’s parents show up. Patricia Clarkson as Marietta and Ed Begley Jr. as John provide the film's most hilarious transformations. They arrive as rigid, religious Southerners and are promptly "corrupted" by the New York air. Clarkson, in particular, is magnificent. Watching her transition from a repressed housewife to a bohemian three-way-relationship-having photographer is the kind of character arc that only happens in a script this absurd. The movie treats the Southern United States like a foreign planet inhabited by polite aliens, which is a trope that probably wouldn't fly as easily today, but in 2009, it served as a perfect foil for the Upper West Side cynicism.

Why This One Fell Through the Cracks

Despite being a modest box office success, Whatever Works has largely faded from the conversation. It was released during a period when Woody Allen was finding more acclaim for his "European" films like Vicky Cristina Barcelona and later Midnight in Paris. This felt like a "minor" work—a homecoming to New York that didn't have the prestige of his Oscar contenders.

In retrospect, the film is a casualty of the transition from the DVD era to the streaming boom. It was a "nice to rent" title that didn't have the visual spectacle required to stay in the cultural zeitgeist once the blockbuster franchise era truly took hold. But looking back, there’s a refreshing lack of polish to it. The cinematography by Harris Savides (Zodiac, Milk) is naturalistic and unpretentious, capturing a version of New York that feels lived-in rather than postcard-perfect.

The comedy is built on rhythm and verbal gymnastics. It’s a "talking" movie in an era that was starting to prefer "exploding" movies. If you appreciate the art of the insult and the beauty of a well-timed rant, the dialogue is a goldmine. When Boris tells a group of children that their parents don't love them and the universe is indifferent, it’s the kind of joyful cruelty that makes the "Curb" fan in me cackle.

Whatever Works isn't a masterpiece, and it doesn't try to be. It’s a shaggy, cynical, and surprisingly sweet comedy about the fact that we’re all just trying to get through the night without a panic attack. It’s a reminder of a time when a $15 million budget could be spent on people sitting in a cramped apartment talking about quantum physics and "menage-a-trois."

The film's ultimate message—that any happiness you can find in this "stinking, slaughterhouse of a universe" is valid—is weirdly comforting. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a very dry martini: a bit bitter, definitely an acquired taste, but it gets the job done. If you missed it during the 2009 shuffle, it's time to let Boris yell at you for ninety minutes. You might find that you actually agree with him.