Essential Woody

Rating: 10/10 (25 January 2002)

This was the film that made me a fan of Woody Allen. It wasn't the first Allen film I'd seen (I saw Deconstructing Harry in theaters before I knew anything at all about Woody Allen), but it made me a fan for life. This film contains everything modern viewers tend to associate with Allen's work: great dialogue, wonderful humor, elements of philosophy, and a playful, inventive tone. "Annie Hall" is the perfect expression of Allen's overall style. It is the benchmark against which all his other films are and should be judged. It is his supreme artistic achievement.
It's a wonderful movie. Uproariously funny in places, but also heartfelt, poignant, touching, warm, and sad. Alvy Singer is an instantly likeable character. The first scene, Alvy talking directly to the audience against an empty background, perfectly sets the tone of the film. It is the ultimate expression of unreality. Here we have a character, who explicitly refers to himself as a character (i.e., this is not Woody Allen providing a prologue to a film about Alvy Singer, this is Alvy Singer), talking directly to the audience, from where? From no place.
It's not unheard of for a character to talk to the audience. "Alfie", for instance, uses this device throughout. But usually, there are rules attached. In "Alfie", the title character talks to the audience constantly, but no one else can here what he says. Occasionally, he gets confused, and says something to another character that he meant to say to us, which they can hear. But in "Annie Hall", this device has no rules whatsoever. It's entirely haphazard. Whereas when Alfie steps out of a scene, he becomes removed entirely from the other characters, when Alvy steps out of a scene, Annie might join him. Or she might not. (Hmm, Alvy... Alfie... connection?)
Anyway, the whimsical approach to a very human, universally identifiable story, is precisely what makes the film so magical. What makes this film so special is the variety of the techniques employed. We've talked about direct monologue already, but we also get conversations across a split screen, characters physically moving through and interacting with their own flashbacks, animation... you name it! Gimmickry? Well, I don't think so, but I would understand if you did. This manipulation of the form of the film is absolutely essential, in my opinion, to the fullest exploration of the central character (who is not Annie Hall, but Alvy Singer.... we end up knowing comparatively little about Annie by the end of the film).

I could go on all day about this extraordinary film, but I'll stop instead. If you haven't seen it yet, do it!! At the very least, it's incredibly funny.