Woody Allen probably has the longest lead time for a director between my
having heard of him and my having seen one of the films he directed.
I’m fairly sure I first heard of him when I was a kid, seeing his name
come up on occasion in the Academy Awards (why I was watching the Oscars
when I was too young to understand any of the films is a question I
cannot answer.) Yet the first time I watched a film he directed was maybe early 2005, with Match Point. Of course, I knew something of what to expect from Annie Hall, about which I heard some rave reviews. I knew it
was a romantic comedy, and by reputation an unorthodox one. And I knew
Woody Allen would be playing a neurotic New Yorker, because Woody Allen is pretty much impossible to picture as anything
else. What I wasn’t sure on was how well I would appreciate the humor.
New York certainly has a strong presence in Annie Hall, but the
humor is framed in a way that makes it more relatable. It’s a love
story. A broken, fragmented love story about a relationship that we’re
told right from the beginning has already fallen apart. Everybody’s had
some form of relationship, doomed or not, and usually a fair mix of
each. Not everybody has the same neuroses that Alvy (Woody Allen) or
Annie (Diane Keaton) have, but we’ve all probably had some neurotic
moments in a relationship. Allen shows these moments in multiple
different ways during the film, from subtitling it with the characters’
thoughts, to having Alvy “interview” random passers-by to get their
thoughts on his relationship with Annie. It’s as if each anecdote of
their lives is a different experimental film. And though the story is
told in bits and pieces and out of order — like a man’s rambling
memories — we see the whole thing unfold, from their awkwardly cute
meeting to the relationship’s eventual self-destruction as Alvy’s efforts to get Annie to grow into him cause her to grow away
from him. Yet even most of the sadder moments involve some humor.
And along the way, it casually introduces New York City itself as a
character - just like Tokyo in Lost In Translation. Not a major one. Just a minor but
recognizable side character. And as Annie spreads her wings to pursue a career in Beverly
Hills, that city reflects hers. But it’s also more relaxed and more willing to
embrace new things. By Alvy’s own admission, New York is stagnant. It’s
shown a lot more briefly, but one gets the feeling that the Beverly
Hills shown in Annie Hall is more pleasant than New York. But
New York is a lot more Alvy, and one suspects more Woody Allen. There’s
an autobiographical feel to the character of Alvy, which is seemingly
confirmed when Alvy writes his first play — an idealized version of his
relationship with Annie. The characters in the play get the typical romantic happy ending, but as Alvy says in the opening, he and
Annie broke up a year before.
It’s not a typical romantic comedy. It’s not a typical anything. It’s
more wistful than hopeful, more apt to go for the smile than the laugh
(though it does score a few of those.). It’s
purposefully disjointed in its storytelling, giving the impression of
somebody very meticulously pounding puzzle pieces into the wrong spaces.
And somehow, it all works to create an enjoyable film, one that
probably requires more than one viewing to fully appreciate, but which is certainly appreciable on the first outing.
WORTHY MENTIONS
In winning the BEST PICTURE award in 1977 it edged out "Star Wars," an outcome unthinkable today.
Diane Keaton's real name is Diane Hall and her nickname is Annie.
MY VERDICT
**** 1/2 - A Classic not to be missed
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