love fades

Rating: 9/10 (16 May 2014)

Annie Hall is filmmaking at its best. Its Woody Allen at his best. And its a romantic comedy at its best. Instantly from the beginning it reminded me of the recent 500 days of summer. Not only because it basically gives away the ending from the opening scene, but because it did a lot for the rom-com genre as a whole. It has a lot to say for life, romance, and even to a certain extent death. But really the trademark of the film is that love fades, and it is extremely difficult for people to continue a relationship for a long period of time.
Out of the small amount of Woody Allen movies I've seen I think this one might be my favorite. Allen is always good at writing characters that seem to work perfectly together even if on the outside it seems far fetched. Alvy and Annie don't seem like a regular couple in fact in real life I'm not sure their personalities fit. But for some reason it makes sense in the movie. The sense of realism that Allen brings to his characters is always refreshing. Everyone has flaws and sometimes in movies we fall in love with the perfect human being, when nobody is perfect, not even close. So when a filmmaker helps us realize that perfection shouldn't be expected for a relationship, you really appreciate the guts they have. Too often do we get our happy ending that isn't realistic at all.
As Allen tells us from the opening scene, him and Annie aren't the same as they used to be. Love just fades, and there's not much we can do to stop that. We should just all hope we find the person that the love is everlasting instead. I think Diane Keaton was the best part about this film, and for me she created one of the coolest movie characters of that time. For many people, the parts of the movie that see the characters jump back in time and flat out talk to people is the funniest and most entertaining scenes. But in my opinion its the only time that I was taken out of the film. The movie has so much realism that when you throw in supernatural like elements it distances me.
By the way the cameos from Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Walken were funny and random. The movie is highly re-watchable and is definitely one of the best romantic movies we've ever had.
+writing and characters
+Allen & Keaton chemistry
-weird out of place flashback moments
9.0/10