The New Woody

Woody's latest isn't what it seems. That's the point.

Like most of Woody Allen's other late-career releases, his newest "Whatever Works" has been casually dismissed by movie opinion-makers, starting with the shrugs it generated at The Tribeca Film Festival.

And, frankly, for the first ten minutes or so, as star Larry David (standing in for Woody) talks directly to the camera and seemingly refuses to stop, the film had me squirming and cringing. "I already hate it," I whispered to my wife, ready to bolt.

But wait!

Its disasterous opening notwithstanding, "Whatever Works" quickly evolves into a highly companionable morality fable about a solitary, opinionated apathist/pessimist (the David/Allen character) who speaks authoritatively and negatively about life and people, threatening to poison everyone around him. The glory of the film is that it cleverly upends his dire theories, shrewdly pulling him into an extended family of free thinkers who have all taken his opinions and rehabilitated them - and him.

His life turns out to be a happy accident.

David plays Allen without resorting to the kind of mugging that other actors have adopted in Allen films and he's encircled by a deft ensemble - most notably, Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Begley, Jr. and Patricia Clarkson.