Woody Allen's "Whatever Works" (2009)

I liked this film, although it obviously covers the same ground Woody Allen has covered at least a dozen times before, namely the unreliability and irrationality of love.  Boris, played this time by Seinfeld comedy writer Larry David, is a depressed, cynical, and arrogant genius.  He was a professor of  Physics at Columbia and was "almost nominated for the Nobel Prize", he says.  So it is established at the outset that he is very bright.  But by now he has left his profession, left his wife, and tried at least once to leave his life.  "The canopy saved me" he says, and ruefully reflects that even that didn't work out.  He rails against the pointlessness of life, the meanness of ordinary humans, and especially  red state conservatives.

In spite of his harsh views of mankind and the world and his habitual tactlessness, he has a soft spot.  This is shown when, confronted by Melody, a young runaway from Mississippi, he allows her to stay with him.  A few days, is followed by a month, and in spite of their age

difference she falls in love with him and he grudgingly accepts her. When her mother and then her father show up the stage is set for a satirical depiction of a clash of cultures, as southern white Mississippi meets northern Jewish New York.

I should point out that I am by origin a midwestern white conservative from Missouri.  Having said that, for me, while the film does satirize the cultural worldview of the South it is not heavy handed or mean spirited, and

Allen finds plenty to satirize about New York as well.  Boris's character, who I suspect serves as a stand-in for Allen himself is a quirky, cantankerous, but ultimately lovable old guy.  The movie is a thoroughly amusing take on the unpredictable nature of attachments in this modern world.