This poster is amiable and easy, but Larry David just pantomining the title…I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like enough. Shouldn’t poster art crank up the intrigue levels a tad more? Shouldn’t it add context and counterpoint? I’m asking.

Whatever Works is “partly stiff and unconvincing and perhaps a bit too mean-spirited, even for a film about a bitter misanthrope,” I wrote on 4.22. “And yet it turns around and goes easy at the end, which I oddly liked and didn’t like at the same time. It sure as hell isn’t about realism, and yet the fakeness of Whatever Works is pleasing. And I was often delighted that the people-are-no-damn-good humor is as scalding as it is.”