If I were to tell you that Woody Allen's new film, "Whatever Works" (opening locally as "Jinsei Banzai!"), involves a nubile, rather dim young girl falling for a cantankerous, neurotic, much older guy, your reaction might be: "Not again!"
Yep, that was my feeling too. Allen's 40th film has Evan Rachel Wood in the "Mighty Aphrodite"-type role of sweet-natured bimbo, and Larry David in the traditional Woody role of whiney, over-educated schlep. Boris is a science genius turned misanthropic hermit — after a failed suicide attempt and broken marriage — until Melody turns up, a teenage runaway sleeping rough outside his Manhattan loft. He takes her in, rather begrudgingly, and though the two are definitely not cut from the same cloth, somehow love works its mysterious ways.
I'm not sure whether I buy the notion that all it takes to win the heart of a Mississippi beauty queen 40 years younger than oneself is to introduce her to the joys of old movies, Jewish cuisine and existentialist despair, but Allen's film is — surprisingly — bristling with enough sharp edges and great jokes that we can forgive his usual conceit of the June-December couple.