Woody's best?

Rating: 10/10 (21 February 2003)

Although I debate as to whether or not I truly believe it, I often find myself believing that "Annie Hall" is Woody Allen's best film. This statement is strongly challenged by Woody's other masterpieces like "Manhattan", "Hannah and Her Sisters", "Crimes and Misdermeanors", "Interiors", and "Another Woman", but I have to firmly stand by it because of the fact that this film marked Woody's evolution from the Funniest Man in the Movies to one of cinema's great auteurs. From here Woody graduated from the slapstick silliness of "Bananas" and "Love and Death" to the more emotionally and intellectually mature mature films he has been making since then (save one or two). The film takes on the major subject of romantic relationships in the sway of big-city life, and how two people who are perfect for eachother in so many ways can be terrible for eachother in so many others. The film stars Woody Allen as Alvy Singer and Diane Keaton (who won as Oscar for her performance) as the title character. The entire movie is centered around how Annie enlightens Alvy's life for a brief moment, then is driven away by his neuroses and selfishness, and how Alvy learns ultimately from the experience that relationships are a matter of give-and-take: you give the best of yourself and take all the bad parts of the other person in stride. If I'm making this film sound like a pathos-spouting art-film retread, I'm sorry. Because what makes this film alive is how Allen's whipsmart wit and eccentric characteristics color the film. The film is, simply stated, flat-out hysterical. Like the scene where Alvy produces Marshall McLuhan to dismiss a film-buff cineaste snob, or Christopher Walken's small, but hysterical role as Annie's space-cadet brother. Or the scene where Annie and Alvy struggle with a live lobster in the kitchen (later used as a payoff as Alvy tries unsuccessfully to recreate the moment with an uninterested woman interest after the breakup with Annie), and the famous cocaine sneeze. And what about Alvy describing a cockroach as "big as a Buick", Tony Roberts lecturing about his "anti-aging" head-sunroof, and a young Alvy losing all faith in existence in grade school ("If the Universe keeps expanding, one day it's going to break apart-and then where will we be?")? Through it all, however, is the inevitable truth that Annie is just too alive for Alvy-characterized by her yearning for the Los Angeles sun as opposed to Alvy's refusal to leave drab New York. The bittersweet ending has Alvy mining his heartbreak for Broadway success, and meeting Annie for lunch one day. At the end of the get-together, we see, in long shot, Annie and Alvy say their goodbyes at a street corner. As Alvy narrarates, we see Annie, then Alvy leave our sight. But the narraration continues as we look at the empty street corner. The movie ends up as Alvy tells us the "my brother is crazy, he thinks he's a chicken" joke-a humorous anecdote symbolic of his entire relationship conundrum. It's this quiet ending scene that ends "Annie Hall", one of the funniest movies ever made, on a perfect note. The film where Woody showed that he was a master.