The result is a stew that is not as satisfying as the gumbo which Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David) gets to enjoy
Comment
10/08/09
Whatever Works (2009)
47
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:123
Fresh:58
Rotten:65
Average Rating:5.4/10
Consensus: Based upon a script written in the 1970s, Woody Allen's Whatever Works suffers from a lack of fresh ideas.
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Genre: Comedies
US Box Office: $5,183,644
Synopsis: The New York-based humor of Woody Allen and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIAM’s Larry David seems like a natural match, and the pair unite for the first time in this comedy. WHATEVER WORKS follows a rich man... [More]
Starring: Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley
Director: Woody Allen
Reviews for Whatever Works
Top CriticIn the end, Whatever Works just about does work, though there’s an awkwardness about it that is never quite dispelled.
10/14/09
Top CriticFans of Allen's work should be happy to find him back in Manhattan, still exploring the meaning of his existence through some typically funny one-liners.
10/11/09
Top CriticVicious laughs and smart shots at our "enlightened" humanity abound, but a nasty current of misanthropy overpowers Woody' latest work.
10/11/09
Top CriticWhatever Works is funnier than anything he's done in a long time -- funny in the robust vaudevillian manner of Groucho Marx.
10/15/09
Top CriticAllen wrote the script almost 40 years ago, and then voluntarily shelved it because studios at the time expressed doubts about its quality. If it wasn’t good enough back then, why drag it out now?
10/14/09
Top CriticWoody Allen’s supposedly undiscovered masterpiece is a complete failure, featuring a one-note performance from the usually hilarious Larry David.
10/13/09
Top CriticI really enjoyed the film. It's not Allen's best and there is a theatricality that keeps us at arm's length; despite the highly successful direct to camera confidences, which are surprisingly endearing. Allen has knitted together a sweater of angst
10/08/09
Top CriticI actually quite enjoyed this, except this sort of constant rant: the contempt he has for humanity and yadda yadda yadda.
10/14/09
Top CriticThe Woodman's return to New York after a four-year European sojourn finds him working very familiar territory much less fruitfully than in the past.
04/24/09
Whatever Works makes more of a demand on a viewer's willingness to suspend disbelief than movies about vampires or giant robots.
07/03/09
Larry David is the mind of the enterprise, and Evan Rachel Wood is the heart.
06/25/09
Top CriticTen years after his great expectoration of bile in Deconstructing Harry, Woody Allen comes up with Whatever Works -- the most shameless, cynically titled Hollywood con job since the days of Billy Wilder.
06/17/09
Evidence that Woody Allen's return to making films in America--it's his first since 2004 ("Melinda and Melinda")--comes with the loss of his mind.
06/11/09
Whatever Works does not: Marking a return to Allen's favorite turf, his new Manhattan-based comedy rehashes old ideas and jokes, and casting Larry David in a role that decades ago Allen could have played with his eyes closed adds no freshness either.
04/26/09
30 years after he wrote and shelved this script, the conceptual creakiness of Whatever Works might have been redeemed only by the director in the starring role.
07/03/09
Unlike last year’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which felt fresh and contemporary, Whatever Works seems dated. Allen has covered these themes so often that they provide few surprises.
07/03/09
Though stuffed with witty one-liners and wondrously convoluted tirades, this far-fetched, deliberately artificial game of musical chairs...feels forced, often losing itself in excess verbiage.
04/24/09
Top CriticThe result is a witty, well-played work without an adequate center. If you can get past that, Whatever Works does.
07/03/09
This toxic, contemptuous, unforgivably unfunny bagatelle finds Allen at his most misanthropically one-note.
07/02/09
Top CriticLatest News for Whatever Works
June 18, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Year One Fails To Beget Laughs
This week at the movies, we've got Biblical bloopers (Year One, starring Jack Black and Michael Cera) and an engagement of convenience (The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock and... More...
May 10, 2009:
Trailer Bulletin: Whatever Works 
Larry David steps in as Woody Allen's latest on-screen surrogate in "Whatever Works," due out June 19. Watch the trailer now! More...
May 10, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review
More...
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