“My real problem with Whatever Works was the older-man-younger-woman theme, which has never been one of my favorite Woody motifs, even before it gained a real-life parallel. (Manhattan is a great film, but the Mariel Hemingway relationship is creepy and condescending, and I don’t just say that as a father of an almost-teenage daughter.) Going back to Alvy and Annie, the romances in Allen’s films often have a teacher-pupil quality, too, and in Whatever Works we get that as well as the December-May thing.
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“But here, Allen doesn’t even bother to make the relationship between Larry David‘s and Evan Rachel Woods‘s characters credible. Aside from her being hot, the attraction makes no sense: She’s a moron and he’s hateful.” — Vanity Fair critic Bruce Handy in a pro-con debate with Frank DiGiacomo, posted this morning.
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