40
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
None of it works. Or it works too hard. Whatever.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
60
The New Yorker by Anthony Lane
There was always a dreaminess in his vision of the city, but now it feels as distant as the polished floors and the Deco furnishings of the Fred Astaire movies that Boris finds--of course--whenever he turns on the TV.
50
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
It's hard to get past the primitiveness of Allen’s fantasies.
60
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
Features enough genuine laughs to give it decent commercial traction.
40
Blown opportunity.
50
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
The fact that Allen wrote the script in the '70s explains something about why his newest movie feels so old.
50
It isn't the laugh riot of the year.
63
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
Whatever Works feels like something out of time and, worse, out of step. Hell, Allen wrote the script back in the 1970s for Zero Mostel.
50
This far-fetched, deliberately artificial game of musical chairs -- in which mismatched characters encircle, attract and repel each other -- feels forced, often losing itself in excess verbiage.
67
Though Clarkson acquits herself reasonably well in a terribly conceived role, her entrance interrupts David’s hilariously twisted mentorship of Wood and sends the movie careening in a far less promising direction.