So I know most people watch Halloween movies on Halloween but not me! I watched three films last night, one of which was Woody Allen’s latest film, Whatever Works. The film was just released on dvd on October 27 and since the fiance is a major Woody Allen fan, we had to watch it. The verdict?
I loved this film! I’ll be honest, I have had very minimal exposure to Woody Allen (Vicky Cristina Barcelona and New York Stories are the only other films of his I’ve ever seen) but this one was enough to make me want to watch them all.
The film follows Boris Yellnikoff, a 61-year-old nerotic man, and self-described “genius”. He lives alone in an apartment in Manhattan and teaches chess to children ,which usually results in him insulting their self-worth and angering their parents. But he doesn’t care. One day, he meets Melodie, a 21-year-old homeless girl from the south who begs him to let her stay with him for a couple of nights and give her food. At first he tells her she’s out of her mind but then he digs up mild enough sympathy to let her in and tell her she can eat a can of sardines and sleep on the couch. She is dumber than a bag of hammers and Boris finds her incredibly irrititating. However, time passes and the two form an unlikey bond as Boris teaches her his philosophies about life and society. Things get even weirder when Melodie’s parents find her in New York.
It took me a little while into the beginning of the film to start liking it. The beginning is a monolgue from Larry David who stars as Boris Yellnikoff. At first, the rhetoric bothered me. I thought “this guy is a conceited a-hole.” But that’s the beauty of it, I came to love that he was a conceited a-hole. Larry David is well-suited to this character, whose personality bears resemblance to Mr. Allen himself. The performance seemed to come naturally to David, as Boris is not a far cry from his own character on the TV show Curb Your Enthsiasm.
Evan Rachel Wood gives a very convincing performance as Melodie, the impressionable and stupid but charming young lady from Mississippi.
While their relationship seems weird at first, there is someting in it that seems incredibly genuine and sweet.
What I loved most about this film was its exaggerated portrayal of how New York changes people. While Melodie grows from all she learns from Boris, her exposure to the city surely has an effect on her lifestyle. When her parents go to New York, the changes they go through are far more drastic.
2 Comments
November 2, 2009 at 4:55 am
that looks amazing.
November 3, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Links!