WHATEVER WORKS: doesn't

WHATEVER WORKS is Woody Allen's first film set in New York City in five years and it's a huge disappointment.
The story has all the components of a Manhattan based Allen movie but they fail to gel into a satisfying Woody Allen-New York experience. He got his mojo back working in Europe but it appears to have been confiscated by customs on his re-entry to the USA.
Larry David plays the appropriately named Boris Yellnikoff. Boris is a professional cynic-pessimist- misanthrope who spends most of the movie yelling his theories about the pointlessness and worthlessness of life, love and hope. We're all doomed to die, he says, so what's the point trying to make anything out of life? Boris is the character that Allen would have played were he acting in the film, not simply directing it, and if Allen had played him he would have made a better job of it than David does.
David is a talented comedian - he co-created "Seinfeld" and stars in "Curb Your Enthusiasm" - but he struggles to raise a laugh here. He plays Boris as a one-note character, barking out his bile for the world in a loud, grating monotone completely lacking in the inflections necessary to make the lines sound funny.
The other big turn-off is Boris's arrogance. He has a total, uncompromising belief in the rightness of his own pronouncements and will brook no dissent. Allen too has played characters who've professed arrogance but it's been clear that they're trying to convince themself that they're right more than they are anyone else. Allen's belief in himself as a great lover, for example, has often been a cover for his own insecurity. Boris is a neurotic hypochondriac but he is not insecure. He's an insufferable prick who deserves a punch in the mouth.
He's so unlikeable that it strains the credibility of the relationship which develops with Melodie, a 20 year old girl from Mississippi who moves into his apartment and falls in love with him despite his best efforts to be as rude as possible to her. Evan Rachel Wood can't decide whether to play Melodie as a sweet innocent or a dumb blonde from the sticks. One moment she's as thick as two short planks, the next she's spouting perceptive insights into human nature. Where David's performance is annoying, Wood's is unconvincing. Scarlett Johansson would have been a much netter bet in the part of Melodie but I guess Allen wanted a change after casting her in his last three movies.
The overall effect is of watching a film made by a writer-director who's studied Woody Allen's style but lacks his talent. It's neither funny enough to be a pastiche nor clever enough to be an homage. WHATEVER WORKS is tired second-rate Allen; considerably closer to "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" than "Manhattan."