In the movies, smart people rarely fall in love. Often, it's the buff and the brawn who are depicted inheriting the earth, falsely treading from plot point to plot point with little forethought about larger, more important issues, such as compatibility and clashing interests. Rarer still are films that continue past the first date and show what it is like to live with another person and embark on a Relationship. In this regard, Annie Hall is unlike many other features because it doesn't try to depict heroes or villains, and does not resort to unnecessary subplots to divert us from the romance itself. It's about two ordinary people who meet, fall in love, then try to define their relation to each other, plain and simple.
That writer-director Woody Allen has crafted a straightforward romantic comedy is not the accomplishment here. It is his constant infusion of different storytelling styles that make it more accessible, and, frankly, more enjoyable. To boot, he gives his characters intelligent dialogue through sacrastic repartee and sincere human reactions to any number of scenarios. Since some of the scenes smack of improvisation, we feel we aren't just watching people reciting words on a page and we start to respond on a visceral level to their responses.
Allen is Alvy Singer, a neurotic comedian with just enough fame to be recognized by people on the street, but not enough celebrity to have achieved any semblance of inner serenity. His previous romantic adventures leave him jaded, including two divorces before he has hit 40 years of age. When he meets Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) during a friendly game of tennis, both are smitten right away and they embark on a sweet courtship. Annie and Alvy gradually discover things about themselves, although on the surface these revelations seem to materialize more in Annie, who finds herself overcoming shyness to take up a singing career, experimenting with drugs, and moving to Los Angeles from New York, which represents Alvy's analytical exterior.
Annie Hall's structure is about as linear a picture as Allen has made, but that probably isn't very much. However, this doesn't impact the romantic crux of it. Although the movie opens with Alvy confessing that he and Annie have broken up, and a visible divide permeates the picture's last reel, we never doubt these two characters care implicitly about each other and, if they can't make their square pegs fit into round holes, we are comforted in the solace that it wasn't for lack of trying. At the film's conclusion, we are able to accept whatever outcome Allen gives us, because he has earned it through smart dialogue and frank discussions on everything from sex and marriage to literature, philosophy, politics, family, childhood, drugs and urban living.
The film incorporates many diverse cinematic techniques. It offers Allen's patented monologues to the camera amidst a lot of flashbacks and fast forwards. There's also split screen conversations, subtitles, introspective voice-overs, and, in the most colourful scene in the film, animation. At the root of all of these is a sparkling wit in Allen's screenplay, raising questions about what human beings really want in relationships, and the different manifestations of happiness, insecurity, solitude, and other universal emotions.
Allen and Keaton are marvellous as the star-crossed geeks; their palpable chemistry is among the best and most believable ever filmed. We see in them a willingness to express any number of facets of their own personalities through their nervous characters. Tony Roberts has some great one-liners as Alvy's best friend Rob, and Paul Simon steals some later scenes as a smooth-talking talent agent. There are also a number of humourous cameos by the likes of Jeff Goldblum, Marshall McLuhan, Sigourney Weaver and Christopher Walken, in a scene with one of the biggest laughs of the movie.
Annie Hall would go on to snag the best picture award in 1978 over a number of equally qualified features such as Star Wars and The Goodbye Girl, a testament to its merit and acclaim. Woody Allen would go on to make more films, but this one proved he could make a smart romantic comedy for the masses without sacrificing his unique style. Funny, insightful and decidedly kooky, Annie Hall is the feather in the cap of Allen's distiguished film career.
