Whatever Works review

Whatever Works (12A, 91 mins)
Director: Woody Allen

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Larry David plays the latest surrogate for Woody Allen to carp about death and the miseries of life for 90 minutes. David is physicist Boris, a deeply unpleasant man who’s middle aged, divorced and hates the world and everyone in it. But when he unexpectedly takes in a young runaway (Evan Rachel Wood), he finds himself beginning to soften. Like a lot of Allen’s work in recent years, there’s a sheen of bitterness here barely tempered by any discernible warmth or wit. Most irritatingly he throws up continual reminders of his best films; the to-camera narration of Annie Hall, the age gap romance of Manhattan that only serve to highlight this film’s flaws. But it’s not entirely without chuckles and Boris’ misanthropy almost becomes endearing, so though it’s by no means vintage Woody, he’s made a lot worse in recent years.

Greenberg review

Greenberg (15, 107 mins)
Director: Noah Baumbach

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

If you can cast your mind back to the psychotic boyfriend of Rachel that Ben Stiller played in Friends, his portrayal of the titular Roger Greenberg here might give you some idea of where that guy ended up. Greenberg is an unemployed misanthrope, always seemingly little more than a step away from returning to the mental hospital he recently left, with an affair with the much younger woman (Greta Gerwig) he meets while house-sitting for his brother doing little to lift him. It’s a brave move for Stiller, who has never shied away from unlikeable characters, but rarely played one so dark. Greenberg is Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Larry David without the sunny personality, and watching him interact with others can be painful to behold. It’s all very well giving us an insight into a troubled soul, but it’s just so stifling and mannered, too uncomfortable as a comedy and not meaty enough as drama.