Whatever Works

Every joke and plot twist in Whatever Works, Woody ? Allen’s latest assembly-line comedy, is so familiar, it should’ve been called Whatever Worked Already. Left Coast misanthrope Larry David plays a cranky physicist in New York City who teaches his dim worldview to a sweet and naive Mississippi runaway (that’s Evan Rachel Wood behind the crawfish-pageant twang). David is funny ? (although I didn’t need to see his scrawny chicken legs in shorts), but the whole dizzy movie is like a subpar Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, albeit one written with a bigger thesaurus. EXTRAS Zilch, unless you count the trailer. C+

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