Annie Hall (1977)

Directed by Woody Allen.

A Relationship in All Its Absense of Glory

For years, I had thought that the movie that beat out Star Wars for the Academy Award for Best Picture of its year was Ordinary People. That was unfathomable to me. How could anything beat Star Wars for Best Picture? Inconceivable! I wasn't sure I was even going to like this Ordinary People, if ever I saw it. It was not until much later that I found out that my anger had been misplaced. Ordinary People won Best Picture in 1981, beating movies like Raging Bull and The Elephant Man. Star Wars was actually beaten in 1978 by Annie Hall.

By that time, I had only gotten to know Annie Hall as a) having the reputation of being Woody Allen's most acclaimed film, and b) a movie which had many similarities to one of my favorite movies of all time, When Harry Met Sally.... I had not actually seen it. However, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before I got around to it. Now, having done so, I can safely say this: Annie Hall is a really great movie.

Proclaimed as one of filmdom's best romantic comedies, I would have to say that that distinction deserves an asterisk. The asterisk should indicate that the movie is nothing like the conventional romantic comedy. Don't conventional romantic comedies have a neat and tidy ending where, despite all that has happened, the two lovers end up in each other's arms? Don't conventional romantic comedies follow a traditional narrative, from the meet cute to the climax to the resolution? Don't conventional romantic comedies take place in a world where the protagonist doesn't get to break the fourth wall and talk to the movie audience? If one was expecting these from Annie Hall, one would have been in for a big surprise. And yet this film deserves that distinction as one of the best romantic comedies, asterisk and all.

I love how honest this movie is. It's raw, it's awkward, and it's ugly, but it's all right there and right on. Having a relationship is a tricky and often painful game, and selfishness is one of the key players. Ideally, one tries to get a boyfriend or girlfriend in order to devote one's self to that other, taking the time to make that person feel special. That's romantic. Annie Hall is anything but. Here it shows a relationship in which the participants are primarily worried about themselves, their own advancements, their own needs and wants, and their own neuroses. Much of the focus, of course, is on Allen's character, Alvy Singer, and how he gets into a relationship with Diane Keaton's Annie Hall mainly just to fulfill his need to be in a relationship at all.

And why are these relationships even necessary in the first place? Our protagonists have nothing in common with each other, yet here they are marching through the years with no clear common goal in sight. They do everything that a couple does when they're together just to be together. They have many good times and they cure each other's lonelinesses, but they never really manage to be able to erase each other's insecurities. They try to change one another, or they try to change themselves, and not for the benefit of the other. Eventually, they are comfortable enough together but they start to grow apart and head in their own directions. And then there's the beautiful part: just when you think there's nothing to salvage from this futile journey, Allen puts in a montage flashing back to all the little moments the couple has had throughout the course of the movie. Just to be with that person, no matter how wrong for each other you are, is what it's all about in the end. What a perfect way to illustrate Allen's last line in the movie, which is the joke about the eggs.

Did I mention this movie is hilarious? Annie Hall is a dialogue-and-joke-savvy tour de force. I really believe the only way you would not be able to laugh at the comedy in this movie is if you are just bothered by Woody Allen. His neurotic act can get on some people's nerves, but for the rest of us his observations are usually on target. The humor is also bolstered by one of the film's most well-known features: off-beat narrative techniques. This is good stuff. The story is not chronologically linear. Flashbacks to childhood often feature the adult version watching the proceedings and being able to comment on them. One sequence uses the joke of having subtitles betray the characters' actual thoughts during an awkward conversation. Another scene is even animated! And then there is the one brilliant sequence in which Allen pulls out Marshall McLuhan to put an obnoxious know-it-all in his place. "Boy, if only life were like this."

The influence of this movie, which may be the most representative of Woody Allen's style, can be see in many later romantic comedies, particularly the ones that deal with neurotic behavior. I've mentioned somewhere else that there are two types of romantic comedies: the fairy tales and the "realistic" ones that deal with all the fumbling people go through when they are trying to survive the relationship ritual. I think Annie Hall is the mother of the latter type. When Harry Met Sally... adopted many of the movie's techniques (most notably the testimonials to the camera, the split-screen, and the ending montage) along with the usage of insightful and humorous conversation. Forget Paris feels a lot like this movie, exploring the entire course of a relationship that has essentially ended, except that the couple is married along the way and that it has a happier (and therefore more fairy tale-like) ending. High Fidelity is practically an update of Annie Hall, featuring fourth-wall breaking, fantasy sequences, a protagonist who has had several relationships, and a realistic ending in which the future is still up in the air.

So is Annie Hall better than Star Wars? Well, it'd be tough for any movie to knock Star Wars off of the pedestal I place it on. Let's just say this: there are movies which, once you've seen them, you could say they are an "ultimate example," perhaps a paragon, of its genre. If Star Wars had to be beaten for Best Picture by anything, it would have to be such a paragon. At least Annie Hall is such a movie.

Rating: 10/10

©Jeffrey Chen, Aug. 10, 2001

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