Does Woody Allen really know what it all means? Does he really have this grasp of humanity that few of us are capable of bragging about? Can he really see the whole picture? I don't know, because I don't know what the whole picture is. What I do know, and I appreciate, is that Allen has been trying over and over again, to understand things (that is the world and the people who inhabit it); or at least, he's been trying to say something interesting about them. I also know that he's always succeeded, and that "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is not a good film because he's not true to himself. It's a movie in which he appears to the viewer as a phony.
On the other hand, something like "Whatever works" is kind of the opposite of what its title and main character profess. Boris Yelinkoff, a once great physician played by Larry David –as much as it hurts to say it- as the Woody Allen of the day, a neurotic, I-hate-everything-in- this-horrible-world man who also happens to think of himself as a genius. It's the Woody Allen of the day because, as always, it's impossible not to think of the Woody persona when we watch a movie in which he's not acting. This Boris is the selected Woody alter ego and professes -to put it in a few words- that come what may, whatever works is just fine.
But this does not apply to Woody Allen the writer/director. While working in London, "Cassandra's Dream" and its moral decisions didn't work so well; in Barcelona, the kissing scene between Javier Bardem and Rebecca Hall, with the Spanish guitarist playing some romantic music in the back, was easily his corniest cinematographic moment in his most disappointing film to date. Luckily, it happens that while in New York again, with a familiar air that refuses to leave behind an opera musical feeling that worked very well for him during this decade, with performances from a fresh and fluid cast that –as much as it hurts to say it- should have had him present, Allen achieves a very good comedy and it becomes clear that it's not 'whatever works'... THIS is what works!
It's a very good comedy because it's not merely romantic although it contains romance as its main element. Boris, I forgot to mention an old grumpy man, tells us that he tried to commit suicide once because of love and it didn't work. Oh, yes! He talks to us in what the plot sees as delusions of grandeur, but we know it's Allen talking to us, looking directly at the screen, as he hasn't done in years. No more voices in off or significant shots, this is Woody betting on characters and Boris is his vehicle for it. Repetition has to make clear: Boris is not Allen because we can't see Woody on screen; but that doesn't mean we don't feel his presence, when this time he plays directly with the idea of the movie audience in two crucial moments. Alvy Singer was a bit more intimate; Boris makes everyone part of the picture (literally, the cinematographic framing).
Anyway: love. Comedy. Not a romantic comedy but a movie that makes comic reflections from love. But it doesn't end there. In "Whatever works" Allen also makes room for comments about life that, as messy as they sound, they sound right, as "in place". So, by Allen, through Boris and from love we experience sex, culture, prejudice, racism, the fear of death, science, art and whatever you may think of. The beauty of it is that, because Boris is the storyteller, everyone passes through his eyes as we see them for the first time. The truth is that, for Boris, everyone is stupid and simple-minded; but Allen embraces these stereotypes and develops them fully. That's something only someone who understands characters can do. Allen respects characters, and he respects life.
These are the reasons why "Whatever works" works, unlike what Boris explains. It's also, and this is not a minor detail, the best Woody Allen picture of this decade since "Match Point", a comic high point that plays as the perfect opposite to the dramatic one that the movie made in London was. And, furthermore, it lives with the contradiction of being perfectly simple, only because it doesn't get to be simply perfect. The final explanation of the contradiction: the film is perfectly simple because it's perfect in its whole complexity and yet it appears to the viewer as the movie most simply shot in a long time; but it isn't simply perfect because it's not its turn...because Woody Allen always can do better, and his next masterpiece is just around the corner.
On the other hand, something like "Whatever works" is kind of the opposite of what its title and main character profess. Boris Yelinkoff, a once great physician played by Larry David –as much as it hurts to say it- as the Woody Allen of the day, a neurotic, I-hate-everything-in- this-horrible-world man who also happens to think of himself as a genius. It's the Woody Allen of the day because, as always, it's impossible not to think of the Woody persona when we watch a movie in which he's not acting. This Boris is the selected Woody alter ego and professes -to put it in a few words- that come what may, whatever works is just fine.
But this does not apply to Woody Allen the writer/director. While working in London, "Cassandra's Dream" and its moral decisions didn't work so well; in Barcelona, the kissing scene between Javier Bardem and Rebecca Hall, with the Spanish guitarist playing some romantic music in the back, was easily his corniest cinematographic moment in his most disappointing film to date. Luckily, it happens that while in New York again, with a familiar air that refuses to leave behind an opera musical feeling that worked very well for him during this decade, with performances from a fresh and fluid cast that –as much as it hurts to say it- should have had him present, Allen achieves a very good comedy and it becomes clear that it's not 'whatever works'... THIS is what works!
It's a very good comedy because it's not merely romantic although it contains romance as its main element. Boris, I forgot to mention an old grumpy man, tells us that he tried to commit suicide once because of love and it didn't work. Oh, yes! He talks to us in what the plot sees as delusions of grandeur, but we know it's Allen talking to us, looking directly at the screen, as he hasn't done in years. No more voices in off or significant shots, this is Woody betting on characters and Boris is his vehicle for it. Repetition has to make clear: Boris is not Allen because we can't see Woody on screen; but that doesn't mean we don't feel his presence, when this time he plays directly with the idea of the movie audience in two crucial moments. Alvy Singer was a bit more intimate; Boris makes everyone part of the picture (literally, the cinematographic framing).
Anyway: love. Comedy. Not a romantic comedy but a movie that makes comic reflections from love. But it doesn't end there. In "Whatever works" Allen also makes room for comments about life that, as messy as they sound, they sound right, as "in place". So, by Allen, through Boris and from love we experience sex, culture, prejudice, racism, the fear of death, science, art and whatever you may think of. The beauty of it is that, because Boris is the storyteller, everyone passes through his eyes as we see them for the first time. The truth is that, for Boris, everyone is stupid and simple-minded; but Allen embraces these stereotypes and develops them fully. That's something only someone who understands characters can do. Allen respects characters, and he respects life.
These are the reasons why "Whatever works" works, unlike what Boris explains. It's also, and this is not a minor detail, the best Woody Allen picture of this decade since "Match Point", a comic high point that plays as the perfect opposite to the dramatic one that the movie made in London was. And, furthermore, it lives with the contradiction of being perfectly simple, only because it doesn't get to be simply perfect. The final explanation of the contradiction: the film is perfectly simple because it's perfect in its whole complexity and yet it appears to the viewer as the movie most simply shot in a long time; but it isn't simply perfect because it's not its turn...because Woody Allen always can do better, and his next masterpiece is just around the corner.