Returning to New York after his European sojourn, director Woody Allen reworks a 30-year-old script for Larry David and creates an engaging hybrid of his 1979 classic Manhattan and David's hit TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm. Anything but a love letter to Allen's native city, this is a spiky denunciation of the fanaticism of conservative America, with guns, religion and sexual hypocrisy all coming in for invective. Often speaking directly to the camera (to the bemusement of the other characters), David's quantum physicist recalls his brief marriage to a Mississippi pageant queen (Evan Rachel Wood) and how this impacted upon the couple and the young woman's staid parents (played by Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr). There's an abundance of incisive one-liners and embittered tirades, with David bringing a new caustic flavour to Allen's nebbish alter ego, and if the action is occasionally contrived and stagy, it's mostly amusing and assured.

Whatever Works explores the relationship between a crotchety misanthrope, Boris and a naïve, impressionable young runaway from the south, Melody. When Melody's uptight parents arrive in New York to rescue her, they are quickly drawn into wildly unexpected romantic entanglements. Everyone discovers that finding love is just a combination of lucky chance and appreciating the value of "whatever works."