Landmark Storytelling from Allen's Creative Mind

Rating: 10/10 (23 January 2006)

At the time, no one had done this: tell a story in the manner that Woody Allen did. Even though many films up until then were talky, with minimal action, with the exception of CITIZEN KANE, nothing of the sort prepared the audience at the time for what they were witnessing: scenes that introduced dialog between two actors much before they actually showed on screen. Scenes in which actors interacted with the past as if it were the present. Scenes in which actors who aren't in the same frame even when they are on screen talk to each other. Scenes in which what the characters are saying does not match their thought bubbles and we are privy to their thoughts. The discussion of an intellectual's work which suddenly produces the said individual, among many more.
ANNIE HALL is a unique film that still looks fresh, even when the style in itself is very 70s. This is a story of a breakup told in a non-linear pattern, showing how these two disparate yet similar people -- Alvy Singer and Annie Hall -- came together, shared their neuroses, went through hilarious times and then went into the slow plateau that became their eventual separation. This is not the kind of story that Hollywood likes to tell and it's quite admirable that Allen was able to not only get away with it but to walk away with the major awards (as well as give then girlfriend Diane Keaton her own Best Actress award) because this being such an intellectual film and not one where the actors all look glamorous, it broke new grounds for a novel way of presenting a film.
Groundbreaking is the definite term here. Had there been no ANNIE HALL, there would have never been ALLY MACBEAL or SEX AND THE CITY, two successful sitcoms that features inner dialog, people talking directly to the camera (and therefore winking at the audience), fantasy sequences, and modern views of how people react to each other. Balancing slapstick with drama, it is also one of the saddest comedies to ever been made and anyone who has seen the final sequence -- which plays out what the film has mentioned all along, that this is their breakup -- knows the heartbreak that unfolds over Diane Keaton's haunting vocals. One of the ten most influential movies of all time.