It ironic that the main character of this film is driven crazy by the utterance of cliches, because this entire film is nothing but a stream of cliches from Allen’s past work. He’s got all his tired old pet ideas in there: the Max Von Sydow misanthropist who interacts with the world only through the woman he lives with, the “Mickey Sax” hypochondriac character obsessed with the completely uninteresting concept that we’re all going to die at some point; the dumb blond who hooks up with a brainy older man who takes care of her, the idea of people sitting around debating religious platitudes (like if there was a God, why did Hitler exist,) the old-timey jazz theme music (straight out of Sleeper, where it was done much better); the blond ditz who turns out to have artistic talent as a photographer (discovered by a wise and sensual older man); the exploration the 1960’s Black/Jewish experience; the idea of three people living together in a mutually sexual relationship; the guy that tries to commit suicide for “existential” reasons and fails in a semi-humorous way. Christ, doesn’t Woody Allen have any new ideas after all this time? What does he do all day, sit in the shower and obsess about the same crap he was exploring 30 years ago, crap which I might add was already kind of stale back then?

Like I’ve pointed out in other reviews, there are only two Allen films that I can stand at this point: Manhattan Murder Mystery (because it is very clever and captures upper-middle class middle-age life in NYC really well) and Vicky Christina Barcelona (mainly because of Hall and Bardem.) I still respect his old stuff like Sleeper, Play It Again Sam, and Love & Death, but I seemingly have no desire to ever see them again. The rest are just insufferable to me, and Whatever Works falls squarely in this later camp.

The problem with Woody Allen is that he got stuck somewhere around Manhattan, and basically never got out of being stuck – the two films above were exceptions that prove the rule. He became stuck on a set of concepts which he obviously feels are intellectually and philosophically cogent – the inability to deal with one’s own mortality, and the impossibility of loving relationships to endure. This is fine, except that his treatment of these concepts is always sophomoric at best, and I think this is because he lacks the soulfulness and the spiritual depth necessary to make an interesting statement on these topics. It’s all like the ramblings of a brainy, isolated teenager. He really has nothing to say about mortality or love, other than “do the best you can and try not to think about it,” which, I’m sorry, is just not a compelling philosophy of life. I always found the climax of Hannah and Her Sisters to be idiotic – he watches the Marx Brothers and because they are having fun he decides that he can just “dumb-down” for the rest of his life. Phuleeeeese!

Whatever Works is not a terrible film, but it is basically nothing but a catalog of Woody Allen’s past attempts at exploring love and mortality. It’s not very funny, not very insightful, and rather tiresome. I can’t really recommend it.