Whatever Works

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Woody Allen returns to New York with an offbeat comedy about a crotchety misanthrope (Larry David) and a naïve, impressionable young runaway from the south (Evan Rachel Wood). When her uptight parents, (Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley, Jr.) arrive to rescue her, they are quickly drawn into wildly unexpected romantic entanglements. Everyone discovers that finding love is just a combination of lucky chance and appreciating the value of WHATEVER WORKS.

After the failure of his career, his marriage, and his suicide attempt, world-class grouch Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David), spends his days insulting the small children unfortunate enough to study chess with him and irritating his still-loyal friends with his never-ending tirades about the worthlessness of absolutely everything. A former Columbia Professor and self-proclaimed genius who came close to winning a Nobel Prize for Quantum Mechanics, Boris fancies himself the only one who fully comprehends the meaningless of all human aspirations, and the pitch-black chaos of the universe. As he readily admits, Boris is not a “feel-good person.”

Boris once had a picture-perfect life. A world-renowned physicist teaching String Theory at Columbia, he was married to Jessica (Carolyn McCormick), a brilliant and beautiful, rich woman, and lived in an opulent uptown apartment. But Boris’s good fortune didn’t alleviate his perpetual feelings of despair, and one night, in the midst of an argument with Jessica, he leapt out the window. To his great disappointment, he landed on a canopy and survived. Afterwards, he divorced Jessica and moved downtown.

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