Will Lewis

Film 4780

Steven Pustay

Whatever Doesn’t Work, Works

Woody Allen’s film Whatever Works (2009) is significant for many reasons.

After making four consecutive films: Match Point (2005), Scoop (2006), Cassandra’s

Dream (2007), and Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008), outside the United States, and

especially away from his beloved New York environment, he made his return to the city

he loves with Whatever Works. Not only were these other films made in Europe, but they

all contained dramatic themes, swaying away from his fame-ridden comedy trademark.

As Brian Johnson notes in his essay “When Woody Met Larry,” “Whatever happened to

the zany intellectual who made us feel like New Yorkers, as he mocked bourgeois

pretension and his own neuroses in the same breathe” (Johnson)? With his latest film,

not only does he bring his audience back to Manhattan, but reacquaints them with the

comedy so many fans had missed. As Johnson exclaims, “Old Woody is back, in a new

guise. After making four movies in a row in Europe, the director has returned to the

streets of Manhattan to make a film that is vintage Woody Allen – literally” (Johnson).

Returning back to the city he so desperately declared love for in films like Annie Hall

(1977) and Manhattan (1979), in Whatever Works, the film progresses or regresses

through the philosophies it presents: pessimism through disparity, and happiness

through… well, as it is written in the film’s title, “Whatever works.”

With making such a landmark return, instead of casting himself as the protagonist

of the film, Woody chose Larry David to fill the shoes as Boris Yellnikov, an elder New
York Physicist, who after being nominated for a Nobel prize and losing, spends his days

teaching chess to “incompetent and moronic” children and cites how he is intellectually

superior to everyone else in the world for the fact he, like no one else, can “see the big

picture.” With David, “Johnson notes:

“Allen has found the ideal alter ego – or rather superego. Because David isn’t
just Woody redux. He’s Woody re-engineered as an alpha male – brimming with
bile but stripped of the nerdy, ingratiating traits that sweeten Allen’s typical
characters” (Johnson).

Marking the return to the city with a new take on the character, Allen opens the film with

an introduction.

Setting the scene with Boris amongst his friends, discussing religion at a sidewalk

New Work café, Boris flees from the discussion and into a rant, the most significant trait

of the character. Equating the teachings of Jesus Christ and Karl Marx, he states, “All

great ideas, but they both suffer from one fatal flaw: They’re based on the fallacious

notion that people are fundamentally decent,” and that “we’re a failed species.”

Spawning into further discussion, Boris is asked to tell, “his story.” As he takes his eyes

off the other characters and comes directly in contact with the viewer, he says, “my story

is Whatever Works,” then looks back at the characters. After his friend begs for Boris to

tell the other characters “his story,” he finally speaks up, saying, “You just want me to

say it again so they (acknowledges viewer) can hear it.” While the film establishes at that

point that Boris is capable of penetrating the fourth wall, it also shows that he is the only

one who can do so. Boris then stands, walks towards the camera and tirades to the

viewer about being in his presence. “Why would you want to hear my story, anyways?”

he asks as he continues walking toward the viewer, “Let me tell you right off, I’m not a

likable guy and just so you know, this is not the feel good movie of the year. So, if you’re
one of those idiots who needs to feel good—go get yourself a foot massage.” In his

revolutionary essay “The Modern Theatre Is An Epic Theatre,” Bertolt Brecht states, “the

artist’s object is to appear strange and even surprising to the audience” (Leach 118). In

this case, by choosing David to play the part, Woody disassociates himself from the

character, thus allowing the character to act at his disposal, making it an “object.” It is

obvious the technique of directly addressing the audience, used inspiringly by his idol

Ingmar Bergman, and the French New Wave directors of the 60’s, did in fact alienate the

viewer by making them aware of the fact they were watching a film. Not to mention,

Woody himself is by no means unfamiliar with this technique, having used it to create the

structure of Annie Hall. But this sense of address comes off quite differently than in the

other film. Obviously the first difference is that it is not Woody delivering the

monologue, but in this scene, comprised of long takes of Boris as he gives his long tiradic

monologue, there is simply more than just addressing the viewer. It is one idea to simple

address the viewer like Bergman used with Liv Ullman in Hour of the Wolf (1968) or

Jean-Luc Godard with Pierrot Le Fou (1965), but it is another to invoke feeling between

the character and the viewer. If it is said that addressing the viewer theoretically “breaks

the fourth wall,” there is absolutely nothing standing between the two, thus opening up

for complete exchange between character and viewer. Now this is slightly flawed by the

notion of distance that film provides compared to theatre, however as Boris stops talking

about his own life, he pauses then states in this introduction, “

“Why do you want to hear about me? Christ, you have your own problems.
I’m sure you’re all obsessed with any number of sad little hopes and
dreams. Your predictably unsatisfying love lives, your failed business adventures.
‘If this,’ ‘if that,’ you know what? Give me a break with your ‘if haves” and
“should haves.”
Not only is he directly addressing the viewer, but reads the generated viewer’s mental

response. Whether it consists of the actual or metaphorical response, a sense of

communication is established. A perfect example of this is how individuals go to see

films they can relate to. In witnessing the story unfold, they take the elements in the film

and apply it to their own lives, however it is just as likely for the viewer to take their own

lives and apply it to the elements of the film, thus changing the overall reception of the

film for them. In cases like these, and for intellectuals and critics watching the film,

Woody’s technique not only disassembles the form of the film, but has created in a sense,

his own Frankenstein monster that he can pour all of his feeling in and project it in front

of the fan, to alienate, and in front of the intellectual/critic, to ideologically destroy.

Also in the introductory monologue, Boris also gives a little exposition to the life

before coming to grips with the notion of “whatever works,” stating, “Don’t think I’m

bitter because of some personal setback. By the standards of a mindless, barbaric

civilization, I’ve been pretty lucky. I was married to a beautiful woman, who had family

money, we lived on Beacon Street, I taught at Columbia. String Theory.” He establishes a

scene in reference to the life he once had, and separate from the one he has when the film

begins. Going to a flashback, Boris awakens in a panic and argues with his wife about

their incompatibility due to her affair and his ability to see “the big picture.” The scene is

as follows:

BORIS: Our marriage hasn’t always been a garden of

roses. Botanically speaking, you’re more like a Venus
Flytrap. I see everything so clearly now. I married
you for all the wrong reasons. You’re brilliant, I
wanted someone to talk to. You love classical music,
you loved art, you loved literature, you loved sex,
you loved me!
JESSICA: Those sound like perfectly good reasons to
 me.
BORIS: Yes, exactly! That’s the problem. It was
rational. It made sense!
JESSICA: I don’t know what went wrong. When you
examine it, there’s so much right about us.
BORIS: On paper we’re ideal, but life isn’t on paper.

After this conversation, Boris opens the window and jumps in hopes to commit suicide,

which in turn fails, cutting back to Boris continuing his monologue. This establishes the

shift in his philosophy on life as he says, “anyways, I divorced Jessica, moved downtown

and gave up.” Living with Jessica, he accepted the meaninlessness in his existence or as

Albert Camus considers the “absurd” in his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus,” stating, “the

absurd is not in man nor the world, but in their presence together” (Camus 6). This

explains his actions of the suicide attempt, being that the absurd consists of him living

inside the world with Jessica and needing to literally “break out.” Boris’ reasons to

commit suicide connect to Camus’ philosophy on suicide, when in his essay he claims,

“suicide is a solution to the absurd” (Camus 6). Only when coming to grips with the

absurd is Boris able to eliminate its grasp through taking oneself out of “the big picture.”

Upon leading to a failed attempt by falling on the canopy, he accepted the philosophy of

Whatever Works, being as he states in the monologue, “Anyway you can filch a little joy

in this cruel dog-eat-dog pointless black chaos,” get and give it.

That being said, Boris meets Melody, who is the exact opposite of himself. She

left her home of Eden Mississippi in order to come to the Big City. Here, two different

locations are establishes with their own sets of ideas: Eden (taken from the Garden of

Eden in the Bible’s book of Genesis) represents “purity,” and the city represents “sin.”

Every character who journeys from Eden to the city, fall into what most will consider the

“sins” in which the city provides. Melody accepts the ideas of atheism and thinks
intellectually, her mother Marietta discovers the bohemian artist in her and falls into a

ménage à trios relationship, and her father, John, discovers his deep repressed

homosexual desires. While the city allows tourists to discover sights, it also gives certain

individuals insight within their own lives. Take for instance, Annie in Annie Hall. In the

beginning, when Alvy meets Annie, she is shy and quite neurotic, however she develops

through her own mingling within the city to the point where she discovers her inner-self.

Being that the city plays such a large part in Melody’s progression, it is impotant to

mention that she is just as much the key figure in Boris’ progression. Upon first meeting

Melody, he establishes a scale based on her looks, at first considering her a 3, (5 if she

bathed), then she grew to a 6, and finally winning Boris’ heart to a 7 or 8. Boris’ scale

serves as the level of physical attraction as well as level of affection.

Woody is in no way a newcomer in questioning the notion of love, however he

does bring up an interesting perspective. Love is something that is achieved over time.

Just as Melody develops a “crush” on Boris, he realizes how much she changes from an

“inchworm” to an intellectual all because of her interaction with him. This illustrates

how love is actually absurd. Tying back to Camus’ quote, the only cure for such a vast

emotion is to take one’s self out of the world. More importantly, Melody’s progression

on Boris’ scale implicates the idea that it is possible to “fall” in love with anyone, or

better yet, convince oneself they are in fact in love, altogether. Boris teaches Melody

everything from his existential philosophy to the wide range of vocabulary he uses within

his long tirades that she obviously absorbs. When she asks for his thoughts regarding her

“crush” on him, he says:

“Anything deeper, anything significant between us is out of the question. It’s too
 preposterous to even dignify with an answer. Every single thing is against it: our

ages, our backgrounds, our brains, our interests. Not to mention I have no desire

to have a relationship with a woman, any woman, nor any urge to make love or

desire to be anything but isolated from the world.”

Boris establishes his view on her “crush,” but also shines light to his newly accepted

philosophy. He lives in an existential acceptance of whatever works. Whether there is a

point to what one does, if they are granted with any happiness, they take it. There might

be no meaning to it whatsoever, however if it provides one with happiness, then it

“works.” Boris mentions how he and Melody are complete opposites. This in contrast to

his quote earlier regarding his and Jessica’s compatibility presents a completely new idea

on love. When she questions him on his loathsome feelings about love, he says, “Love,

despite what they tell you, does not conquer all. Nor does it even usually last. In the end,

the romantic aspirations of our youth are reduced to ‘whatever works.” At this point,

when Melody’s oppositional stance in Boris’ eyes would have possibly ‘worked,” it was

when she came home after her date that convinced Boris of reevaluating his position of

love. Her distaste for everything she represented establishes the beginning of her

transformation. Commenting about her date, she says to Boris, “he likes everything!

Life, love, human beings. The couple we dated with were protons. Cretins. They didn’t

even know the first thing about String Theory. They actually believe that love is the

answer to everything.” She fully establishes her new self through Boris’ eyes when she

tells the story of her old friend Jedthro Page and how he made love to a sheep, and ending

it with, “You know, I told them, it’s like Boris always says, ‘whatever works.’” Upon

hearing this, Boris goes into a long monologue reassessing his entire relationship with
her:

“Unbelievable. The chance factor in life is mind boggling. You enter the world by

a random event somewhere along the Mississippi. I, having emerged through the

conjoining of Sam and Yedda Yollnikov in the Bronx, decades earlier. And

through an astronomical concatenation of circumstances, out paths cross. Two

runaways in the vast, black, unspeakably violent and indifferent universe.”

Boris’ affection for Melody not only reevaluates his definition of love, but also provides

his life with hope, and in return, works. Boris’ marriage to Melody keeps him alive, since

he obviously contains a philosophical view on the world that would eventually lead to

another suicide attempt, therefore, the happiness that she provides him ceases any

possibility in the urge of wanting to partake in another attempt. “She’s cheerful,” Boris

says walking happily along the street, “not demanding. Okay, not brilliant as Jessica, but

not as ambitious and predatory either. Jessica’s problem was that she made up an ego,

where she lacked a superego.”

When Marietta discovers her daughter’s location and condition, she is absolutely

shocked, however it is when she, herself, gives into her own inner deep desires that she

understands the location, but continues to loathe the condition. Marietta brings the

horrible news of having lost their house in Eden and her separation from John, her

husband. It is mentioned that Melody’s father took up with another woman. The

experience of humiliation drives Marietta into a fueled frenzy to completely transform

herself. By introducing Melody to Randy, a completely new likelihood is established for

Melody. She tells him that she is married and his response is, “it may not last forever,”

causing Melody to accept this likelihood, saying, “Well, nothing lasts forever, not even
Shakespeare or Michelangelo or Greek people. Even as we’re standing here talking right

now, we’re just flying apart at an unimaginable speed.” He wraps his arms around her

and says, “Shouldn’t we hold onto one another so we don’t fall?” The realization of this

likelihood fully hits her to the point where she utters in response: “Well, you have to hold

onto whatever love you can in this cruel existence.” By stating this, she herself develops

the Whatever Works philosophy, even so far as stating the exact purpose of it within her

opposition to his attraction. Melody is placed in the exact same situation as Boris in the

beginning: whether to go with the way one is placed in the world, or into the urge with

whatever works, just as she, her mom and her dad gives into. Melody is pushed even

further to the limit when going back to Boris, she become consciously aware of her

aggravation with Boris’ desire to seek unhappiness and his tirades altogether, saying,

“Sometimes I think your so determined not to enjoy anything in life just out of spite. Like

a child who’s throwing a tantrum because he can’t have his way.” Instead of being upset,

Boris is actually surprised, proud even by her newfound ability to create such a wise,

intellectually worded insight. After complimenting Melody on such a vast insight, he

pronounces, “I really don’t know what I’d do without you, seriously,” adding gasoline to

the fire of emotional confusion.

Melody enters Randy’s environment, being a stud-like houseboat, resting

comfortably on a dock, and cannot help but fight the temptation of her being pushed to

such a heightened limit that she gives into the universal pull. Upon being kissed, she

instantly thinks of two things. The first being entropy, applying it to an analogy with

toothpaste, one that can best be described as once something is out, it cannot go back in.

Her situation is obviously the metaphor in the analogy. After giving into the temptation
that works, there is no going back to Boris and accepting the life she once had. The other

thing she thinks about is Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, something she associates in

a sexual manner, claiming, “It’s like when my mother makes love to one of the guys

she’s living with alone but when she’s with the other guy she does it differently.” By

establishing her own insight of Heisenberg and relating it to her own life, Melody

illustrates two different versions of herself influenced by two different people: Melody

with Boris and Melody with Randy. Boris represents the mind, Randy, the body. It was

Boris’ ideas on life that attracted to her, just as equally shown through Randy’s handsome

appearance. Melody’s choice for Randy is made the very minute she kisses him back.

Ridden with guilt, Melody attempts to confess the incident to Boris and opt out of the

marriage, however is cut short by the sudden arrival of her father.

John, having cheated on Marietta comes to bring the news of his departure from

the woman he was having an affair with, hoping to reconcile the family and bring them

back to Eden. Only when he talks to Marietta does he notice how much the world has

changed without his presence. “You went away! You can’t expect the world to stay the

same way just because you’re not here,” Marietta yells at John. He is sent through his

own frenzy, leading him right to the only place to find solace – a bar. Inside the bar, he

meets Howard Cummings, a gay divorcee, just like John—wallows over the loss of a

love. John contains the inability to accept the possibility that one would be as he phrases,

“a member of the homosexual persuasion,” and that being one constitutes “a sin against

God’s law.” “God is gay,” Howard responds to John, which in this case is a valid

argument if one believes in God’s existence and that God creates man in his own image.

Case in point, Howard’s identity and John’s repression of homosexual desires derive
straight from God’s image. John progressed forward with his affair, however it left him

sexually impotent by regressing back to his marriage, that itself being a progression away

from his actual homosexuality. All of this progressing and regressing leads John forward

when he meets Howard and confesses his repressed emotions, thus winding up in a

relationship with him.

While the guilt overwhelms Melody, she gives in and confesses to Boris her love

for someone else. While at first, he appears shocked, next Boris quickly accepts it:

BORIS: I completely understand. This does not bring

counter to my conviction that love relationships are
almost invariably transient.
MELODY: I don’t think that’s true if the right…
BORIS: Really? You have your own ideas.
MELODY: I miss participating in the real world. I even
miss people. Even the inchworms and cretins,
because they’re not bad, they’re just scared.
BORIS: I think you’re making the right decision. I’m a
profound, sensitive soul with an enormous grasp
of the human condiction. It was inevitable you would
grow tired of being so grossly unundermatched.
Greatness isn’t easy to live with…even by someone of
normal intelligence.
MELODY: You’re upset. I don’t expect you to
understand. How could you?
BORIS: Believe me, if I can understand Quantum
Mechanics, I can certainly comprehend the thought
process of a sub-mental baton twirler. It’s okay. I
knew this day would come. The universe is winding
down, why not we?

This scene is pivotal to the film, because it, like his climax with Jessica, marks Boris’

ascension back into disparity. By accepting Melody, he gave into the universe and

whatever worked. Now adding heatbreak on top of his persuasion to fate, Boris falls

deeper into self-pity absorbed by what Jean-Paul Sartre consider “despair.” “Life

begins,” as Sartre exclaims, “on the other side of despair” (Sartre ix). The whatever
works philosophy had not run its course and no longer worked, thus causing him to

accept Sartre’s beautiful idea: “nothing happens when you live. The scenery changes,

people come in and out, that’s all” (39). The other reason this important is its connection

to other Woody Allen films where a breakup occurs. In Bananas (1971), while taking a

comedic approach with Fielding Mellish, the film shows the urge to stall the act of the

breakup itself. Annie Hall presents reluctant Alvy Singer, who proposes the perfect

illustration for a relationship when he says, “a relationship is like a shark, it has to keep

movie or it dies. And what we have on our hand is a dead shark.” In Manhattan, Isaac

presents unfound shock upon Mary telling him that she is still in love with Yale. There

are others, however these films, including Whatever Works, encapsulate the rigid halt in

life when a breakup is announced. The acceptance of harshness within life is established

as truth. One might deny it, however only when the even happens is it constituted as

truth. As Kierkegaard said, “Truth exists for the individual only as he himself produces it

in action” (May 12). To go further into Kierkegaard statement, the individual both

produces and receives it since it take one person to propose the breakup and the other to

accept it.

In the end, like most of Woody’s films, he includes a montage, but this time

upbeat jazz music is not playing nor is there anything funny within the segments, but

instead a somber melody aurally complements a shot of Marietta in bed with Bockman

and Morganstern, Melody on the dock kissing Randy and finally Boris washing his

hands, alone. The music ends as he jumps out the window. Boris returns yet to the

notion of the absurd and turns to the only cure. However, instead of jumping out the

window to his death, he lands on a Helena, a woman walking her dog. In the hospital
room, Helena attempts to lecture him on the pointlessness in suicide and if he ever

thought of how his actions would affect other people. Stern as he is, Boris argues with

her until she asks him to leave. After asking if there is anything else he can do, she asks

that when she recuperates that he take her to dinner. He asks what she does for a living

and she replies, “a psychic.” With a soft laugh, Boris then asks, “if you can see into the

future, how didn’t you know I was going to jump out of a building and land on top of

you?” She smiles and softly responds, “Maybe I did.” This marks the point in which

Boris yet again discovers hope in the world. Just as he went from developing a

pessimistic view through disparity with the ending of his and Jessica’s relationship, he

opened his mind and heart to Melody, adopting a whatever works view that would fall

apart with their breakup, sending him once again into disparity, and literally falling into

the arms of Helena, who once again changed his philosophy on life. During his new

year’s party, Melody asks him about his life, and he responds: “As you would say in the

crude fashion of your generation, ‘I totally lucked out.’ It just shows what meaningless

blind chance the universe is. Everybody schemes and dreams to meet the right person and

I jump out a window and land on her.” The film itself does not conclude in the cliché

feel good way scathed upon by Boris in the beginning, but presents life as it is.

Sometimes life can be hard to accept, other times it can be easy, but according to Boris,

one just does. Going back to Sartre’s quote on disparity, he clearly establishes that there

is another side to disparity in where life presides along with happiness. Existence is just

a matter of finding what side one falls on and deciding if it is the desired one. For Boris,

he situated himself, then constantly alternated, just as everyone does in existence. While

addressing the camera in completely a newer, happier tone compared to the beginning, he
reiterates his philosophy: “Whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you

can filch or provide. Every temporary measure – whatever works.”

When Charlie Chaplin portrayed the lovable Tramp character in his films, he

always has some entanglement with a beautiful women before making the trademark

walk into the sunset alone. However it was in Modern Times (1936) that a woman

accompanied his side into sunset at the end. Whatever Works ends instead with another

breakup, but the beginning of a relationship. The viewer knows merely Helena’s

profession and her name and the movie ends. Perhaps this ending suggests that it is

pointless to conclude with giving the viewer an implication of what will happen. Instead

of establishing a “will it work” or “will it not” feeling, Woody instead has Boris

metaphorically walking off into the sunset with Helena at his side and willing to accept

“whatever works.”
 Works Cited

Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays. New York, NY: Albert A.

Knopf, Inc., 1991. Print.

Johnson, Brian D. “When Woody Met Larry.” Maclean’s. 122.22 (2009): 22-27.

Academic Search Database.

Lech, Robert. Makers of Modern Theatre. New York, NY: Routledge Publishing, 2004.

Print.

May, Rollo. “The Emergence of Existential Psychology.” Existential Psychology. New

York: Random House, 1961. Print.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Nausea. New York, NY: New Directions Publishing Co., 1964. Print.