I purposefully avoided watching Whatever Works for months. It’s been out of the theaters for a while and the hype has abated. So because of this I felt that it was time for a viewing. Going in, I didn’t look into the plot, see who appeared alongside Larry David. Nothing. I went in as a blank slate – well, one that has an unyielding affection for the principal actor as well as the director.

Of late, though, Woody Allen hasn’t quenched my need for twitchy Jews. It’s somehow comforting to see a version of me plastered up there, being accepted and even rooted for. But Allen’s last few films had little to do with the American Jew instead featuring European extravaganzas with writers and the like. That doesn’t mean that those films were bad, just different. None of them failed, but I wasn’t in them.

In the intervening time, Larry David sated my thirst for nervy Jews. So, combining the two should surely result in something distinct and impressive. Only in theory. It’s not all bad, but there’re a number of moments where David doesn’t get over on the big screen.

The banter between the two principal characters, here played by David and Evan Rachel Wood, was written in much the same style that Allen has worked in over his career spanning forty some odd films. It’s undeniably interesting to watch the writer’s words fly from David’s mouth and imagine the confluence, accept the delivery is stilted.

As David and Wood sit in a park after the latter has moved in, the dialogue becomes rather dense with the younger actor properly delivering her lines with aplomb. She’s not perfect, though, and having to deal with the stilted work of David she trips up a few times. But the scene could very well have worked if Allen had portrayed himself here. Of course, that would again open the floodgates to various criticism of the writer giving himself some obtuse love interest.

That, though, is what the narrative’s about.

Whatever Works feels half complete throughout most of the narrative. The country girl, her mother’s transformation – it’s not stock, but it seems close. After the David character and the Wood character are married, how is it that the young girl is at all satisfied? Yes, viewers need to suspend belief in order to enjoy some films. And the end point of this endeavor is really that it all flies apart: entropy. We’re all doomed.

Viewers, though, spend an awful long time during the film waiting and waiting for the let down. When it finally comes, it’s not shocking, just surprising that it didn’t happen more quickly.

Larry David isn’t stiff throughout the entire deal, just during some back and forths and that monologue at the beginning of the film. The ending, or at least the sentiment expressed, no matter how detached from one’s perception of Woody Allen, really saves the entire film. Watching Whatever Works won’t make you feel warm at its conclusion, just not doomed.