Whatever Works is a 2009 American comedy film directed and written by Woody Allen and starring Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley Jr., Michael McKean, and Henry Cavill.

Boris Yelnikoff is a cynical, misanthropic chess teacher and former Columbia quantum mechanics professor.

Divorced, he avoids most people, and except for three friends and his students, is patronizing to anyone he meets who doesn't match him intellectually.

Melody soon finds a job as a dog walker where she meets Perry Singleton, and they arrange a date.

Later, while shopping for clothes, Melody meets Randy in yet another planned encounter and he gets her to admit that her relationship with Boris isn't entirely satisfying.

Melody and her parents have completely shed their former Southern conservative mindsets and wholeheartedly adopted the liberal New York City way of life and values.

[3] Partly to counter assertions that the film is autobiographical,[4] Allen has pointed out that the script was written in the early 1970s, with Zero Mostel in mind for Boris; it was shelved after the actor's death in 1977.

Thirty years later, Allen revisited the script in an attempt to create a film before a potential threat of a Screen Actors Guild strike.

[4][5] On February 2, 2009, Variety reported that Sony Pictures Classics had purchased U.S. distribution rights to Whatever Works.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Based upon a script written in the 1970s, Woody Allen's Whatever Works suffers from a lack of fresh ideas.