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WHATEVER WORKS Woody Allen, 2009 Review • Spanish Script

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WHATEVER WORKS Woody Allen, 2009 Review • Spanish Script WHATEVER WORKS Woody Allen, 2009 Review • Spanish script TRANSCRIPTION 0:00:00 CREDITS Groucho Marx sings Hello I must be going, from the film Animal crackers (1930) Hello, I must be going. I cannot stay, I came to say I must be going. I'm glad I came but just the same I must be going. For my sake you must stay, for if you go away, you'll spoil this party I am throwing. I'll stay a week or two, I'll stay the summer through, but I am telling you, I must be going. 0:01:08 BORIS, JOE, ADAM Y LYLE BORIS That's not what I'm saying, you imbecile. God, you completely misrepresent my ideas! Why am I even bothering talking to such idiots? ADAM Boris, calm down. BORIS No, don't tell me to... I am calm. JOE Don't jump on us just because we don't understand what you're saying. BORIS I didn't jump on you. It's not the idea behind Christianity I'm faulting, or Judaism, or any religion. It's the professionals who've made it into a corporate business. There's big money in the God racket. Big money. ADAM Here we go. We know, Boris. BORIS Hey, the basic teachings of Jesus are quite wonderful. So, by the way, is the original intention of Karl Marx. Okay? Hey, what could be bad? Everybody should share equally. Do unto others. Democracy. Government by the people. All great ideas. These are all great ideas, but they all suffer from one fatal flaw. ADAM Which is? LYLE Yeah, what's that? BORIS Which is they're all based on the fallacious notion that people are fundamentally decent. Give them a chance to do right and they'll take it. They're not stupid, selfish, greedy, cowardly, short-sighted worms. They do the best they can. LYLE Speak for yourself, man. Speak for yourself. BORIS All I'm saying is that people make life so much worse than it has to be and, believe me, it's a nightmare without their help. But on the whole, I'm sorry to say, we're a failed species. LYLE I wouldn't go that far. BORIS Not Ed. That's why this woman you like, Joe, so what if she's an embalmer's assistant, so she stinks from formaldehyde? For Christ's sake, you got to take what little pleasure you can find in this chamber of horrors. JOE A little formaldehyde, okay, but she reeks of it. ADAM You know, they don't know your story. LYLE Boris, tell them your story. BORIS My story is, whatever works. You know, as long as you don't hurt anybody. Any way you can filch a little joy in this cruel, dog-eat-dog, pointless, black chaos. That's my story, okay? ADAM No. That's not... Tell them the story. Tell them. Yeah. Tell them. BORIS You just want me to say it again, so they can hear. ADAM Who? BORIS Them. LYLE Who? Who's them? BORIS You see something out there? LYLE Where? BORIS What are you? An imbecile? There's an audience full of people looking at us. JOE An audience? OTRO What's he talking about? You feel you're being watched. BORIS They paid good money for tickets, hard-earned money, so some moron in Hollywood can buy a bigger swimming pool. JOE Okay, you're saying there are human beings out there who bought tickets to watch us. BORIS Well, mostly they're interested in me, I have to say. Yeah, they're just sitting there. Don't you see them? Some are eating popcorn, some are just staring straight ahead breathing through their mouths like Neanderthals. JOE So they're there to listen to your story? LYLE Total delusions of grandeur. JOE Completely. BORIS Why would you want to hear my story? Do we know each other? Do we like each other? Let me tell you right off, okay? I'm not a likeable guy. Charm has never been a priority with me. And just so you know, this is not the feel-good movie of the year. So if you're one of those idiots who needs to feel good, go get yourself a foot massage. BLACK KID Mom, that man's talking to himself! MOTHER Come away, Justin. BORIS What the hell does it all mean anyhow? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nothing comes to anything, and yet there's no shortage of idiots to babble. Not me. I have a vision. I'm discussing you. Your friends, your co-workers, your newspapers, the TV. Everybody's happy to talk, full of misinformation. Morality, science, religion, politics, sports, love, your portfolio, your children, health. Christ! If I have to eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day to live, I don't want to live. I hate goddamn fruits and vegetables. And your omega-3's and the treadmill and the cardiogram and the mammogram and the pelvic sonogram and, oh, my God, the colonoscopy! And with it all, the day still comes when they put you in a box and it's on to the next generation of idiots who'll also tell you all about life and define for you what's appropriate. My father committed suicide because the morning newspapers depressed him. And could you blame him? With the horror and corruption and ignorance and poverty and genocide and AlDS and global warming and terrorism and the family-value morons and the gun morons! "The horror", Kurtz said at the end of Heart of Darkness. "The horror". Lucky Kurtz didn't have the Times delivered in the jungle, then he'd see some horror. But what do you do? You read about some massacre in Darfur or some school bus gets blown up, and you go, "Oh, my God, the horror!" And then you turn the page and finish your eggs from free-range chickens. Because what can you do? It's overwhelming. I tried to commit suicide myself. Obviously, it didn't work out. But why do you even want to hear about all this? Christ, you got your own problems. I'm sure you're all obsessed with any number of sad little hopes and dreams. Your predictably unsatisfying love lives. Your failed business ventures. "Oh, if only I'd bought that stock!" "If only I had purchased that house years ago!" "If only I had made a move on that woman." If this, if that. You know what? Give me a break with your "could haves" and "should haves." Like my mother used to say, "If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a trolley car." My mother didn't have wheels. She had varicose veins. Still, the woman gave birth to a brilliant mind. I was considered for a Nobel Prize in physics. I didn't get it. But, you know, it's all politics, just like every other phony honor. Incidentally, don't think I'm bitter because of some personal setback. By the standards of a mindless, barbaric civilization, I've been pretty lucky. I was married to a beautiful woman, who had family money. For years we lived on Beekman Place. I taught at Columbia. String theory. 0:06:45 HOUSE OF BORIS BORIS Aaaah! Aaaaaaah! JESSICA, frightened What's the matter, Boris? BORIS I'm dying! JESSICA What is it? BORIS I'm dying! JESSICA Should I call an ambulance? BORIS No! No, not now! No, not tonight! I mean, eventually! JESSICA Boris, everybody dies. BORIS It's unacceptable! JESSICA Your panic attacks are getting more frequent and more intense. You have to go back on your medicine. BORIS I'm not going back on my goddamn medicine. I won't have my mind befuddled by chemicals when I'm the only one who sees the whole picture for exactly what it is. Where's the goddamn vodka? JESSICA Boris, I have clients to see tomorrow morning. It is 4:00 a.m.! BORIS Clients. Right. Wealthy bankers. To design their chic apartment, to fill it full of art and expensive possessions, so they can flaunt their money and be in the top 1% of this shameful, violent, prejudiced, illiterate, sexually repressed, self-righteous nation! JESSICA Christ, it is 4:00 a.m. Can you spare me this sophomoric tirade! BORIS I'm a man with a huge worldview. I'm surrounded by microbes! JESSICA And what about me? Am I a microbe? Is our son at Yale a microbe? BORIS Let's face it, Jessica, okay? Our marriage hasn't been a garden of roses. Botanically speaking, you're more of a Venus flytrap. JESSICA You are a very difficult man to live with. BORIS Is that why you had an affair? JESSICA I didn't have an affair. It was a brief interlude of infidelity, and it happened years ago. You still can't forget it! BORIS I see everything so clearly now. Everything! I married you for all the wrong reasons. JESSICA What's that supposed to mean? BORIS You're brilliant. I wanted someone to talk to. You loved classical music, you loved art, you loved literature. You loved sex! You loved me! JESSICA Those sound like pretty good reasons to me! BORIS Yes! Exactly! That's the problem! That's the problem! It was rational, it made sense! JESSICA I don't know what went wrong. When you examine it, there is so much right about us.
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