Annie Hall

Back in the 1970s and 1980s I didn't really watch many movies and I certainly missed Annie Hall first time round. In fact, the only memory I have of it was when a Woody Allen-buff friend of mine, Howard, described a then-girlfriend of mine as being like Annie Hall, meaning it very much as a compliment.

For some reason, even without having seen the movie, his comment burned it's way into my soul. Unfortunately, I didn't actually get round to seeing Annie Hall until a few years ago, when it was too late.

Annie Hall

Now, twenty five years later,Howard's words still burn, because he was right. Damn right! She was like Annie Hall and unfortunately became the mother of my children. She was someone I should never, ever have become involved with because it was obvious, even from very early on, that disaster would ensue. Annie Hall, then, plays for me like an episode of The Twilight Zone, in which I see what should have happened.

It's the story of a doomed love affair, told in as light-hearted and blameless a way as possible, mired in the psycho-babble of its time and elevated by the timelessness of its discord.

Annie Hall was also the movie in which funny guy Woody Allen stepped up to the plate and delivered a comic work of maturity, winning at the 1977 Academy Awards:  

• Best Screenplay Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman
• Best Director Woody Allen
• Best Actress Diane Keaton &
• Best Picture

Woody Allen plays a comedian, Alvy Singer, who falls in love / into bed with kooky Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) a would-be night-club singer. The two then spend the next few years trying to stay together, when strong internal forces are pushing them apart.

It's a bittersweet memoir with some truly sweet and memorable episodes (the lobster, the box of cocaine, the good looking couple in the street) plus what we've now come to see as par for the course with Woody, attacks on:

• L.A.
• pompous intellectuals

and obsessions with:

• Manhattan
• getting sex (Allen's wandering hands seem, to me, especially creepy) &
• death

...delivered by an almost whining cynic who yearns to be a romantic but is completely unwilling to pay the price. 

Alvy champions Psychoanalysis and after things start to become difficult between the lovers, he generously offers to pay for Annie to undergo therapy. Unfortunately, her analysis seems to give her more self-confidence, driving a wedge between them. 

Inevitably Alvy and Annie part, with Annie going to the West coast, vapid, narcissistic L.A....and possible stardom. She hooks up with a new lover, Tony Lacey who's a big-wig in the music-biz (Paul Simon, who, like Woody, is also short and Jewish)...and of course,  Alvy tries to woo her back, believing that no-one could willingly stay away from New York (and him)...

Annie Hall DVD

"...Annie Hall has been called the first modern romantic comedy, but it is actually the ultimate anti-romantic comedy. Where the movement of the classic rom-com is the union of two mismatched lovers, the kiss, marriage - a forward movement which is' in effect' sexual sublimation - 'Annie Hall' begins with its romance's break-up, and proceeds with a vignette narrative structure, in which Time and Space are fragmented: far from gathering any momentum, the film, with is modest highs and lows, kind of peters out, just like romance in real-life..." Amazon reviewer darrah o'donoghue

Annie Hall was later homogenized to reappear ten years later as the far more popular, When Harry Met Sally. However, for me, the original still holds it's own, remaining an important film and still surprisingly contemporary. Oh, if only I'd listened to Howard! 

Annie Hall screenplay

Annie Hall poster

see also:

• wikipedia Annie Hall