May 26, 2012

Video Views Pick: Whatever Works

by Art Slavin | Published October 27, 2009

directed by Woody Allen
PG-13; 92 minutes

Once again, Woody Allen puts on the screen a character much like himself. This time it’s Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David), a cynical hypochondriac intent on expounding his opinions on religion, relationships and the purpose of life. Ask him and he’ll tell you that he is a genius. (Yes, he will speak directly to us in the audience.) Since his divorce from a woman his intellectual equal, he has given up his career as a quantum physicist, and is now living alone and making his meager income teaching chess to kids in the park. When young Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood) enters his life, he is at first untrusting and upset about it, but soon finds that they have a strange but meaningful connection. But the world turns upside down when Melodie’s mom (Patricia Clarkson), and then her father (Ed Begley, Jr.) come to New York to find their runaway daughter. The humor is fresh and invigorating.

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