Curb Star in Woody's Latest ... Eh, Whatever

Woody Allen! Larry David! It sounds like a match made in comedy heaven, but the results are more like purgatory, according to the critics. Here’s what they’re saying:

• Whatever Works is one of Allen’s worst movies, writes Claudia Puig of USA Today. David’s Boris “is aptly named: He bores us. At least when Allen plays the part of the older man lusted after by gorgeous twentysomethings, he has some modicum of charm.”

• “Somewhere in Whatever Works is the grit of a great movie,” says Anthony Lane of the New Yorker. Instead it’s redeemed only by a great performance from Patricia Clarkson, as Boris’ mother-in-law.
• The script was written in the 1970s, and it shows, says Peter Travers of Rolling Stone. “Whatever Works feels like something out of time, and worse, out of step,” he writes. But can any true film fan resist the David-Allen combo? Probably not.

(More Larry David stories.)