Thoroughly Modern Millie-And Then Some-Woody Allen’s “Whatever Works” (2009)-A Film Review Of Sorts

DVD Review

By Frank Jackman

I know exactly why I drew this assignment from current site manager and the guy who hands out the film assignments Greg Green (after having done that task at American Film Gazette for a million years, if you can believe this I worked as a stringer for him there when I was just starting out some thirty or so years ago). The problem with on-line sites is that everything can be easily archived and so Greg just looked up a few pieces I did a few years ago about a growing up hometown friend, Phil Larkin, who also occasionally writes here as well, and his travails with intergenerational sex with some Penn State graduate student whom he “met” on the Internet. Since a theme, a sub-theme as it turns out, of this so-so Woody Allen written and directed Whatever Works is the budding relationship between a twenty-something Southern (Mississippi) “baton twirler” (the main character’s characterization of her on his nice days) and a jaded neurotic older New York guy who has soured on the world after his fair shares of ups and downs that is the main play here.

(According to the blip on this effort it is not autobiographical according to Woody whose own intergeneration sexual encounter with his step-daughter whom he eventually married got him plenty of bad press in the early 1990s. I will take his word that this vehicle was intended for Zero Mostel who died shortly after he had written it and thereafter the script was shelved. Moreover autobiographical or not does not impinge on this whole subject of intergenerational sex which has certain taboos associated with it that I was trying to write about in the Phil Larkin pieces.)      

I don’t want to discuss the cinematic technique that Woody used here to present the main character jaded, neurotic Boris, played by Larry David who is talking to the audience during parts of his monologue/soliloquy to the disbelieve of all his contacts but the interplay, the as it turns out wide range of sexual play only high-lighted by Boris and his baton twirler Melody, played by Evan Rachel Wood. True to New York Jewish intellectual form Woody has Boris world wary and weary in such a way that it had all the zing of very early such Woody productions based in New York settings and made me think that in the earlier 1970s sense the thing would have been played by Woody himself casting away on Annie Hall, Manhattan, and the like.

What makes the whole shebang workable to steal from the idea that generated the writing is the total improbability of the two main characters having the slightest thing in common. Boris already described in a few words which makes the nut takes in essentially a runaway, Melody, the baton-twirler from the South who baffles Boris no end as he tries to get rid of her-for a while- and then she becomes something like a case study in the redneck ethos and non-Jewish, non-intellectual, non-New York world that Boris is clueless about. Except he had his very definite opinions about that outer world. And she, well, she sparkly and bright, bears his malice and bile. Then opposites attract. Wedding bells. Boom                

Attract for a while because intergenerational interplay (ah, sex) winds up being only one of the many ways that human beings can interact. That comes on display when Melody’s horrified mother comes up looking for what she assumed was her runaway daughter. Mother winds up having some cultural talent and she winds up with two lovers-at the same time. Father comes looking for Melody too (after a fling which broke up the marriage). Turns out he was a closet homosexual and if anyplace would be a place to cast your fate looking for a gay partner it was post-Stonewall New York. Bang, gay couple. To complicate matters Mother pulls a dipsy-doodle on Boris and Melody pulling a younger man in her path and Melody falls for him. Poor shmuck Boris-a loser. No. In desperation over losing Melody he decides to commit suicide. But in his weird world he fails hurting somebody whom he landed on who turns out to be his next wife. Heterosexual love. Bang. Makes me wonder if Woody was working his magic these days on this whatever works theme whether the talking-impaired cleaning lady and creature in The Shape of Water would merit a cameo appearance. Funny in spots if you like old-time Woody monologue/dialogue.