The Thousands

Everytime Woody Allen makes a movie, critics either go, "A return to form for Woody Allen!" or "Woody Allen’s finished as a filmmaker." After the elegiac Vicky Cristina Barcelona I wasn’t expecting much, but Whatever Works touched my little black grinchy heart. I laughed myself silly.

This script dates from Allen’s supposed prime. He wanted Zero Mostel to play Boris Yellnikoff but gave up after Mostel’s death in 1977. It was a brilliant move to cast professional pedant Larry David as Boris, a self-described genius who papers over his crippling existential panic with smug misanthropy. He lives in a shabby apartment and suffers to teach chess to small children (aka ‘inchworms’ and ‘cretins’).

When improbably wide-eyed Southern belle Melodie (Rachel Evan Wood) inveigles herself into Boris’s life, they fall into a relationship that, oddly, works for both… until Melodie’s religious, conservative parents (Ed Begley Jr and the fabulous Patricia Clarkson) show up. Whatfollows is fluffy, artificial and old-fashioned, but surprisingly feel-good considering Boris’s jaundiced proclamations to the contrary. If you’ve ever agonised over making life choices, Whatever Works is a sparkling paean to compromise.