Whatever Works: movie monologues to shadow
13 monologues from Whatever Works. Original audio, one line at a time, with a pause to say it back.
- 1Full speech: hear it once
- 2Shadow: repeat each line
- 3Blind: listen, then reveal
- C139 lines
Why would you want to hear my story?
Boris's opening monologueWhatever Works · 2009It swings from life philosophy to Heart of Darkness, setting the film's bitter comic tone. - B212 lines
Meanwhile, I divorced Jessica, moved downtown and gave up.
Life after the divorceWhatever Works · 2009He narrates his own decline flatly, then swerves into social anger without missing a beat. - B14 lines
Stupid beyond all comprehension, but you'll never survive here. You got nothing going for you. Zero. Zilch.
Boris's brutal assessmentWhatever Works · 2009He runs through her brains and looks like a ruthless rating, and the numbers land like punchlines. - B26 lines
Hey, you know, my mom always told me that it was gonna hurt the first time, you know, she said it was, you know, it's a woman's duty to just lie down, bear it and...
Melody's confessionWhatever Works · 2009She talks through shame and pleasure in one breath, and her innocence makes the story land. - B24 lines
Every single thing is against it.
Boris's rejection speechWhatever Works · 2009He stacks reason on reason until refusal sounds less like cruelty than biology. - B24 lines
Let me teach you something about love. Okay?
Boris's lesson on loveWhatever Works · 2009Four lines move from caveat to verdict, cutting romance down to whatever works. - B26 lines
Can you believe this little inchworm setting her sights on me?
Boris complains to his friendsWhatever Works · 2009He pretends to complain while bragging, and reaches for Pygmalion to make the point. - B14 lines
Sorry, Mr. Yellnikoff. - Yeah, you're sorry, you're sorry. Use your head next time, you won't be sorry!
Boris scolds his studentWhatever Works · 2009He turns a chess mistake into a lecture, and the impatience carries the comedy. - B28 lines
The chance factor in life is mind-boggling.
Boris on chance and the universeWhatever Works · 2009He scales a marriage up to astronomy, and the coldness somehow makes it moving. - B26 lines
She's cheerful, not demanding.
Boris weighs the marriageWhatever Works · 2009He compares wife to ex-wife item by item, and the grumbling hides real contentment. - C115 lines
She slept with Leo Brockman, never having been to bed with anyone before but her husband,
the voice-over on her rebirthWhatever Works · 2009A deadpan voice-over walks her fall and rise step by step, and the flatness is the joke. - B14 lines
Of course, to have children, you don't need a license. No proof of anything.
Boris on parenting licensesWhatever Works · 2009The rant stacks one absurd license after another until the real outrage lands. - C19 lines
It's amazing, Melody.
Boris on the human conditionWhatever Works · 2009It flattens thousands of years of civilization into small talk, then shrugs it all away.