The film where Woody Allen found his own voice, and one of his best ever films

Rating: 10/10 (9 February 2014)

Not everybody will love Woody Allen's humour, some will find him interesting and sharply insightful while others will find him self-indulgent. With me, it veers very largely towards the former with some occasions where the latter does creep in. Annie Hall is one of his best films, a masterpiece and one of the better Best Picture winners of the 70s with only the two Godfather films even better. The best assets are the script and the chemistry between the two leads. The script is enormously witty, with cracking dialogue that induces one and at times more laughs a minute, and full of insightful observations. People have deemed it one of the best screenplays of all time, and from personal perspective there is no reason to argue. The chemistry between the two leads, running somewhat on a parallel between the relationship of Woody Allen and Diane Keaton itself, and the actors in general actually is throughout very believable. It is often adorable and often dynamic. It helps that Diane Keaton gives one of her best and most endearing performances, and while Alvy is not a particularly likable or sympathetic character Woody Allen is similarly great, his looking into the camera and breaking the fourth wall moments were funny. The supporting cast all give spirited performances, especially Tony Roberts, Paul Simon, Carol Kane and Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum is memorable as well for one of the film's best and most quotable lines. The romance is sweet and relateable, the ending for me was really moving, but the story doesn't depend on that alone, Allen also muses over topics that were relevant then and that we can see as relevant today as well, he does so in a very thoughtful way. Allen directs with assurance, and while there have been more visually audacious Woody Allen films since Annie Hall it is still cleverly made with the way it's shot, the cartoon images and how we're shown visually what the characters are thinking. There is no music score and in this case that was a good idea, there was more leeway for the relationship between the two lead characters and observations to speak, and that's the same for the deliberate but never tedious pacing. Overall, an outstanding film, one of Allen's best and one of the greatest films of the 70s. People may dislike it for it winning Best Picture over Star Wars(this viewers and many others however think it fully deserved the win), as much as I'll have a fondness for the Star Wars original trilogy and consider it a milestone of its genre it is easy to see out of Star Wars and Annie Hall which is the superior film. 10/10 Bethany Cox