Love Story: Woody Allen Style

Rating: 10/10 (27 May 2009)

Woody Allen's, "Annie Hall" which has a tag line "A nervous romance" is a story of two New Yorkers who truly loved each other but could not stay together and eventually and inevitably moved on with their lives. Simple like that but it was told by Woody Allen, which made it not so simple and very enjoyable. This is the film where Diane Keaton proved to be a perfect actress for Allen's movies. She brought to the film a lot of herself, her natural nervousness and insecure attitude, even her dressing style that became hugely popular. She played Annie with such bemusement, perfect timing, and natural sense of humor, that for the whole time the viewers can't help asking themselves how she did it. The part of the answer is that Allen understood her completely and masterfully used the originality of her persona to write and direct the character of Annie. Keaton recalls, "Of course I recognized myself in the roles Woody Allen wrote. I mean, in Annie Hall (1977) particularly. I was this sort of novice who had lots of feelings but didn't know how to express herself, and I see that in Annie. I think Woody used a kind of essential quality that he found in me at that time, and I'm glad he did because it worked really well in the movie."
For Annie Hall, Allen received his first and only Oscar nomination for acting, and he deserved it. You may say that you've seen all his tricks many times but Annie Hall was the first movie where he mixed physical comedy, anxiety, and neurosis with the genuine feelings of love and nostalgia especially touchingly and funny. Engaging the audience to the film by talking directly to them may not be used for the first time ever by Allen but it worked perfectly in Annie Hall. Who would forget the scene in the ticket booth in an art house movie cinema where Woody summons up Marshall McLuhan to silence a self-important movie critic who just would not shut up? The flashbacks are smart and witty, the split screen technique that Allen uses, really adds to the characters' understanding by comparison two parallel streams of thought. Both, NYC and its antitheses, LA look gorgeous. Even the smallest cameos are memorable. Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum, for example, made their early appearances in Annie Hall.
The fascination and love that the film received upon its release had to do a lot with the fact that it was so different from everything Allen had done before Annie Hall. Checking the list of his earlier movies, one can't help noticing that they were pure slapstick comedies. The only earlier film that can be called Annie Hall's true predecessor is the one that Allen did not direct even though he wrote it, starred in it and for the first time shared the screen with Diane Keaton - Play it Again, Sam. As the first Allen's romantic dramedy, the one that had started the whole genre of independent and sophisticated urban love stories with an unusual, over self-involved and self-obsessed lead hero who is not always likable but nevertheless is always ready to be the first to laugh at himself, Annie Hall has found the high place in the film history.
Critics have compared Annie Hall to Fellini's 8 1/2 but Woody responded in his typical way that "it's more like my 2 1/2". The members of the academy did not think so, and rewarded the film with 5 Oscar nominations, of which it won four, making Annie Hall one of very few comedies to have won the Best Picture of the year Oscar and the shortest ever Oscar winner - 93 precious minutes of Woody Allen's genius and Diane Keaton's charming nervousness.