Many actors have played the Woody Allen role in Woody Allen movies besides Woody Allen, and with mixed success: for every John Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway, there’s a Kenneth Branagh in Celebrity. In Allen’s latest film, Larry David assumes the role of sharply observant, neurotically indignant, endearingly curmudgeonly nebbish, and as casting it’s a qualified success: David brings a spiky sense of mischief that sidesteps self-pity, but he remains so aloof from the action that it’s hard to engage emotionally.

A former physicist and Nobel near-miss, Boris Yelnikoff (David) leaps from a window in despair at his futile existence but survives. Before long, he’s shacked up downtown with Melody (Evan Rachel Wood), a ditzy waif from Mississippi whose artless wonder threatens to chip away at his ingrained misanthropy.

The broadness of the antic characters Allen sends across Boris’s path and the crises to which they fall subject are too exaggerated to engage as drama, and those uncomfortable with Allen’s tendency to pair nubile girls with ageing men will find little relief. But for all its wobbles, Whatever Works is rooted in an agreeable sensibility: life favours fate over luck, so grab whatever chances of happiness come your way.