Whatever Works (2009) on Netflix
Boris Yelnikoff, a misanthropic former physics professor in New York, now makes money giving chess lessons to children. A runaway from Mississippi, Melody, asks him for food at his door.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb7.1/1079,646 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes50%
Trailer
Plot summary
Boris Yelnikoff taught quantum mechanics at Columbia until he quit and moved to an old apartment downtown, where he gives chess lessons to children. One night he comes home to find Melody, 21, on his doorstep. She has fled her fundamentalist family in Mississippi and asks to stay, and he agrees. She forms a crush on him, though their ages, backgrounds and minds differ. Boris comes to love her as well, and the two marry.
Cast
- Clifford Lee Dicksonas Boy on Street
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Whatever Works (2009)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Woody Allen wrote the script for Whatever Works in the early 1970s with Zero Mostel in mind to play Boris Yelnikoff; it was shelved after Mostel's death in 1977.
- Thirty years later, Woody Allen revived the shelved script to get a film made before a possible Screen Actors Guild strike, and his only significant changes were updating the topical references.
- Larry David was hesitant to take the lead role, telling Woody Allen that his work on Curb Your Enthusiasm was improvisation, but Allen encouraged him to take the part anyway.
