Directed by Woody Allen. Starring Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Begley Jr, Patricia Clarkson, Henry Cavill, Kristen Johnston, Michael McKean 15A cert, lim release, 92 min

It's the same-old same-old in this predictable but funny Allen comedy, writes DONALD CLARKE

THERE ARE currently, in the world of Woody Allen Studies, two competing analyses of the great man’s recent work.

The larger camp – taking in the vast majority of American experts – argues that, by moving his films to Europe, Allen discovered delicious new energies and thrillingly original structures. Look at the sinister twists in Match Point, they cry. Recall the glamorous decadence of Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

A smaller cabal (taking in your current correspondent) believes that the European films are, for the most part, meretricious, poorly judged travelogues. Look at the crass melodrama of Match Point, we snort. Recall the empty hysteria of Vicky Cristina Barcelona. And the least said about the genuinely abysmal Cassandra's Dreamthe soonest mended.

The older Allen is, perhaps, at his best when at his most familiar. Well, nobody would argue that Woody is breaking new ground with Whatever Works. Once again, the film concerns a neurotic Jew who falls in love with a much younger woman in a bohemian quarter of Manhattan. As in Broadway Danny Rose, a chorus of diners discuss the protagonist's story in a traditional restaurant. The hero is confused by rock music and most other contemporary culture.

The film is, of course, disdainful towards ordinary folk from inland states. And so on. In an inspired move, Larry David has been drafted into the "Woody" role, but, that aside, Whatever Worksplays like a variation on number of earlier Allen pictures.

So, it’s a bit lazy. It’s also more than a little patronising. But it’s funnier than any of the director’s last six releases.

An undeniable comedy genius, but a spectacularly limited actor, David just about convinces as a scruffy physicist who believes an audience of moviegoers is watching his every move. One evening, in an incident related in a lengthy tirade to camera, he encounters a simple-minded southern girl (Evan Rachel Wood) begging for money outside his apartment.

She talks her way in and, after a period of tension, they fall into a relationship. He lectures her about culture and nihilism, they reach a domestic understanding and, eventually, end up getting married. Later, her mad mother (Patricia Clarkson) and madder father (Ed Begley Jr) turn up and get inducted into Professor David’s world.

If we hadn't seen all the other Allen films concerning smart old men romancing dumb young women (his next, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, revisits the theme again) and we didn't know about Allen's own unusual domestic arrangements, then we could view the central relationship as a harmless outbreak of wish fulfilment. The informed Allen fan must, however, admit that the director's pathological obsessions are now impossible to ignore.

We should further note the degree of smug condescension in Woody’s attitudes to the “other” 49 states: Begley and Clarkson behave like gab-toothed hicks who only gain fulfilment when they are initiated into the downtown bohemian scene.

Yet, like a naughty child with a cute turn of phrase, Whatever Worksproves hard to dislike. Perhaps Allen keeps returning to the bimbo-duffer dynamic because it offers such enormous scope for excellent jokes.

Consider the scene that finds David, who is susceptible to night sweats, leaping from bed in a moment of mortal despair and being escorted downstairs to watch TV by his young lover. “I have seen the abyss!” he says portentously as she wields the remote. “Don’t worry, we’ll watch something else then,” the befuddled girl replies.

The best strategy is, perhaps, to view the picture as a middling episode of a situation comedy that has been playing with varying degrees of success for the past 35 years (since Annie Hall, say). In fact, Whatever Workswas originally intended as a project for Zero Mostel in the 1970s. This is a piece of living history that deserves, at the very least, a respectful glance.