“Whenever the focus falls back on David—sometimes talking straight to the audience in an extremely effective breach of the fourth wall…”
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this is the most innaccurate sentence on the Internet right now. From the AV Club’s review of Whatever Works.
When Woody Allen talks to the camera in 1977, okay, wow, look at that! First of all, it was new then. Second of all, it was adorable, pre-incestual, pre-ScarJo Woody Allen. We would take anything he would give us. I think I would have sex with Woody Allen today just on the off chance that there might be a smidgeon of the charm he embodied in Annie Hall.
But when Larry David looks into the camera? Ew! Go away. It makes me feel uncomfortable, cringe-y, horrified. I want to wave at him to back off and stop talking to me. Is that the point? Sure, he is not supposed to be likeable, a curmudgeon’s curmudgeon, you call people cretins, WE GET IT.
But this is beyond that. This is watching Larry David leave an already shaky, poorly-acted, poorly-constructed scene and LIMPING AT YOU awkwardly, when you still have hope for this disaster of a film, and TALKING TO YOU, AND ABOUT YOU. Not just talking at the camera, BUT TALKING ABOUT THE AUDIENCE. It’s so…LAME. I understand if you are lacking charm and hate humanity BLAH BLAH BLAH but I don’t think the audience is supposed to scream stuff in their heads like, WRONG, NO, STOP, THIS IS HORRIBLE, NO, PLEASE, GOD while you try to show us your movie.
That is not effective breach of the fourth wall. That is Zach Morris-level 4th wall breach. That is fourth wall breaching that I would get finger wagged for if I tried to do that in my night class at the New School.
And it makes me want to puke!
