One of film's greatest romances

Rating: Null/10 (10 May 2003)

You know, it's like that old joke, a midget, a nun, a whore, and Elvis walk into a bar and the bartender says `have you guys ever seen that movie Annie Hall? It rules!' Or something like that. That can probably sum up any review of this movie, but I suppose I should do a little more. At its simplest, Annie Hall is a movie about an off and on romance between Woody Allen and Dianne Keeton. Allen is a neurotic comedian and Keeton is a small town girl from Wisconsin living in New York City. The romance is great; the tension is real from the first awkward conversation after their tennis match to their final fight at the health food restaurant. It's hard for me to write about this film, there are so many things done so well that I get lost. That is how the movie leaves you at times too, it is told in an almost rambling way. The chronological order of it makes very little sense. We go back and forth in time constantly in the film and flashbacks are so long we forget they are flashbacks. Allen may have been talking to audience qualms about this in a scene where he and Annie are in line to see a movie and a pompous intellectual behind them pontificates about Fellini's latest film and complains how it is too `indulgent', a claim that could be made about Annie Hall as well. The movie is almost an interactive experience. You are brought into the movie. The very first thing you see is Woody Allen (or is it Alvy Singer?) talking directly to you. It's like if your friend was a standup comedian and he tried to tell you a serious story. It is a serious story, but it comes from a comedian, so it is full of jokes. This breaking of the fourth wall is just one of the many innovative techniques that this movie used. To list a few: transformations, subtitles with what a character is really thinking, animation, breaking the fourth wall (and NOT just by one main character), adult time travel back to childhood (interjecting adult selves into flashbacks, AND interacting with the flashback), dialogue between two voiceovers, and conversation between split screens. Just to name a few. The biggest innovation for me however is the successful intermingling of drama and comedy. There are times in the movie when you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe that is just a more accurate view of real life than most films will give you, or maybe it's just Woody Allen's own experience. There is no doubt that the film is at least semi-autobiographical, Diane Keeton and Woody Allen dated before the making of this film, her real name was Diane Hall, and she did have a Grammy Hall, and Woody Allen did play somewhat of a mentor role to Keeton. Speaking of the mentor role, that is another major part of the movie. When Alvy meets Annie, she is a ditsy Midwestern girl, but by the end of the film Alvy has helped her mature and sophisticate. So much so, that she eventually can't deal with his refusing to grow out of his insecure shell. In the end, the movie is just a look back at why a relationship didn't work out, but it is not only applicable to Allen/Singer's own relationships, but it is indeed a problem relevant to modern urban society as a whole and it is a revealing look into the psyche of not only one man, but of people in general through this `indulgent' and self reflexive movie.