Basta che funzioni (Whatever works)
di Woody Allen.
USA, Francia 2009
Con Ed Begley jr., Patricia Clarkson, Larry David, Conleth Hill, Michael McKean, Ewan Rachel Wood, Henry Cavill, John Gallagher Jr., Jessica Hetch, Carolyn McCormick.
A year away from Vicky Cristina Barcelona, \u200b\u200bWoody Allen returns to the screen and directed by Whatever Works (Whatever Works) and is always a pleasure for the spectators. Back in New York, with a screenplay by more than 30 years old - so he says - written for the actor Zero Mostel (brilliant interpreter of The Front - The Front of '76), who died in 1977. Guess, however, I think Larry David more suited to the role of alter-egos of Woody Allen, it would have been good but the Zero Mostel.
And this proves once again the skill of the director in the choice of attori, giacché il film poggia, oltre che sul personaggio femminile di Melodie, quasi per intero sulla figura tragicomica di Boris Yellnikoff (perfetta sintesi di Woody Allen-Larry David campioni di umorismo yiddish), docente universitario a riposo riciclatosi come insegnante di scacchi che, con buona dose di cinismo mascherato d’ironia, giudica l’esistenza con lo stile del Woody Allen intellettuale di Manhattan (1979).
Con la differenza che sono passati trent’anni e la vita dell’uomo nel pianeta appare al protagonista l’eterno scacco matto di “una specie fallita” ad opera di un Dio assente o al massimo “arredatore di interni”. Rispetto ad allora, c’è in meno forse la curiosità di vivere, ci sono in più le tematiche care al Woody Allen degli ultimi anni: il ruolo potente del fato, della fortuna e del caso.
In tale contesto, la sceneggiatura sembra meno ispirarsi ad una storia pensata da oltre trent’anni e più vicina al filone inaugurato con Mighty Aphrodite (LA DEA DELL’AMORE del ’95), approfondito magistralmente dieci anni più tardi nei 124 minuti di Match Point, continuato, forse con minore efficacia, nelle tre successive pellicole: Scoop (2006), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) e questo Whatever Works, accomunate tra loro dalla durata minima per un lungometraggio e soprattutto dall’esilità della trama.
C’è tuttavia una differenza in Whatever Works rispetto ai due precedenti lavori. Non solo, infatti, si torna a New York, cioè ad un habitat che il regista ben conosce, si torna anche alla freschezza di Mighty Aphrodite e al teatro greco.
I temi del destino, della fortuna, dell’amore e del caso vengono trasposti in una cornice che nulla lascia all’improvvisazione.
Chi, vedendo la Melodie (Evan Rachel Wood) di Basta che funzioni non pensa subito alla Linda Hash in arte Judy Orgasm (Mira Sorvino) di La dea dell’amore, nella versione italiana l’una e l’altra doppiate con straordinaria efficacia dalla voce di Ilaria Stagni?
Prostituta one o'clock (Judy), naive girl of the southern United States and the other (Melodie), both share a vision of simple and innocent (despite all) of life and intended to collect the prize (or most) of Luck 'love, according to a concept dear to the last Woody Allen: "I do not know why we are the world and even the birth is linked to the case.
Anything that can make it more acceptable to the existence of the person is welcome. Whatever Works. "
In two films, this sort of philosophy of carpe diem, follows a pattern almost identical. Everything is announced in an atmosphere of Greek tragedy to turn into comedy, as if a benevolent puppeteer, an unseen deus ex machina, under certain conditions, undertook to ensure the species "failed" a minimum of happiness.
And if the film of the '95 final in the background looks more like a comedy of Plautus, where the two protagonists meet in a long time - unaware that Larry's daughter Linda is his daughter, Linda unaware that the child bred by Larry is the son who had left - in the final Whatever Works is full of festive masks Plautus with Boris in the role (as he does throughout the film) of him who from time to time separates the actors to spend time with the public with characters that reflect them DISCOUNT appear (like the one that Marx and Jesus are right in principle, but wrong to overlook the man, a kind of worms in the best case, is not good ...) but to hear them, for ' effectiveness and simplicity with which they are called, come to the audience as so many pills of wisdom.
And it is the second part of the new film by Woody Allen, all designed to prepare the final, to limp. Not only because of a decrease in rate and style, but also and especially for the film drawn freely from the obvious baggage and post-modernity, as a tribute to pay to the psychology of so-called worms easy: her father and Melodie's mother that the different circumstances in the province of bigots change from unscrupulous and satisfied users of their freedom, allowing Marietta (Patricia Clarckson) to strip, so to speak, his own photographic talent together enjoying the delights of a ménage à trois, and her husband to uncover happily gay. Ringtones and Boris, for their part, to the intrigues of Marietta and drawing unlikely of Fortune and the case, go back to a normality that suddenly makes them less interesting, but the possibility, if everything works, to cover a greater part of happiness .
Film, however, do not miss work because of one, perhaps the last great masters of cinema.