Poly Movie Review - Whatever Works
http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Whatever-Works/70114945?strkid=353249791_0_0&strackid=5527d0d14ebd642d_0_srl&trkid=222336 - Netflix
http://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Works-Larry-David/dp/B002LMV7RA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1345443817&sr=8-2&keywords=whatever+works - Amazon
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1178663/ - IMDB
Whatever Works by Woody Allen, was recommended to me by corpsefairy. I'm not a Woody Allen fan. I get awfully tired of his neurotic-old-man-gets-hot-younger-woman schtick that seems to be the only kind of relationship he is capable of writing about. But corpsefairy told me this movie has a functional poly relationship as sub-characters and that I should watch it.
So I did.
I was pleasantly surprised. The main character IS a neurotic old man who gets a hot younger woman, but I liked it anyway. Boris is a cranky, atheist, nihilist, genius, egomaniac, and other than the nihilism part getting tiresome rather early, I actually kinda liked his character. He bitched about religion and stupid people, which I can TOTALLY get behind. His constant dismissive and condescending attitude towards others, assuming that everyone is dumber than him, got annoying, but otherwise, I found I had a lot in common with the old crank.
The Plot With Spoilers:
One day, he comes home to find a pretty, homeless girl from Mississippi on his doorstep begging for food. Against his better judgement, he lets Melody come inside to eat, where she weasles her way into free room and board for the next month. She's dumb, cheerful, and religious. And yet she manages to develop a crush on cranky old Boris anyway.
He resists her for a while, but eventually she grows on him and they end up married. About a year later, her crazy Christian mother shows up on their doorstep, praying to Jaysus and trying to save her daughter from the sinful life in New York and marriage (that she refuses to acknowledge) to a man old enough to be her daughter's grandfather. We find out that Marrietta (Melody's mom) was recently dumped by her husband, John, for her best friend and she is now homeless, broke, and divorced.
As she plots to find another man for her daughter, Marietta ends up getting introduced to one of Boris' friends, a professor of philosophy named Brockman who finds her physically attractive in spite of her crazy religious views. He asks her out on a date, where she gets drunk and shows him pictures of Melody as a child pageant queen. Brockman thinks her pictures have a "primitive" brilliance to them and convinces Marietta to show them to an art critic friend. Brockman also seduces Marietta and all her religious views fly right out the window.
The art critic friend, Howard, falls in love with Marietta's "primitive" photography, and also with Marietta, and the two men move in with her in a happy threesome, where the crazy religious southern Christian turns into a hedonistic, polyamorous, artist living in New York.
Later, Melody's dad, John, shows up to "save" his daughter and to win back his wife. Apparently things didn't work out with the best friend, as he lost his sexual attraction shortly after shacking up with her, much like he did with Marietta. After his culture-shocking confrontation with his ex-wife in which he has to deal with his sweet little homemaker turned into a wanton, loose, pornographer (he encounters her at one of her photography exhibits, which are all collages of nudes), he drowns his sorrows at a local bar where he is confronted with his homophobia after he discovers his drunken commiserating with the other bar patron is actually with a gay man who was just dumped by his lover, Norman. All these shocks and the copious amounts of alcohol lead John to confess his attraction to the high school tight-end on the football team. So John and the gay bar patron hook up.
Meanwhile, Marietta's machinations work and Melody falls in love with a romantic who is much closer to her own age, and she leaves Boris, who tries to commit suicide by jumping out his window, and promptly falls onto a woman walking on the sidewalk below. After visiting her in the hospital, Boris falls for her, only to discover that she's a psychic, something he doesn't believe in. But he falls in love with her anyway, because love isn't rational.
So I liked the movie because the protagonist was a cranky, atheist, son of a bitch, and the poly triad had no drama or issues whatsoever. Marietta discovered much more of herself through her relationship with her two male partners, which is exactly what happens in poly relationships (if you do them "right") and is one of the greatest benefits to poly relationships. The relationship worked and the movie ended with the triad still functioning and happy. And throwing in that bit about the homophobic, gun-toting Republican coming out as gay was just a fabulous cherry on top.
I recommend the movie for a bit of light viewing, and it definitely deserves to be on the poly list, even though the poly family is not the main plot focus.
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