Annie Hall was honestly a tough one to get myself to watch. Momentarily putting aside the decades-old, sexual assault allegations against Woody Allen and the fact that he *ahem* married his daughter, I try to immerse myself in the work of classic directors in order to get a wider perspective and opinion on film, as any cinephile should. While I had not seen any of Allen's works before, I did not know what type of film I was in for. Thankfully, I did enjoy this movie more than I actually thought I would and I do frankly enjoy Allen's style of filmmaking. My main issue with this film, however, is the main meat of it: the script and the characters. With some decent performances from Allen and a young Diane Keaton, this really proves itself an interesting movie to pick apart.
Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is a neurotic writer and comedian living in New York City. He falls in love with an aspiring singer named Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) and over the course of their relationship, Singer examines everything that went right and wrong in order to better understand himself. This is a very simple premise for a film and there are certain times that it worked and certain times that it did not. What did work about this film was Allen's direction, but what I've come to realize after watching his directing style unfold is that I enjoy his storytelling, but not his stories; his direction, but not his content. The way that Allen tells this movie throughout multiple different narrative forms and breaking of the fourth wall was incredible to see. For the time period that this had come out in, I found this direction to be revolutionarily mesmerizing to watch. It's so peculiar to me that audiences in the 1970s would be on board with a film like this, but his direction is honestly the best part of this whole film. Singer stepping outside of his own relationship and analyzing the different parts of his past that made him who he was is such an amazing concept for a romantic comedy that led to many comedic and dramatic moments. This was the part of the film that drew me in the most and genuinely kept me engaged. I also loved Allen's incredibly witty style, as every character in this film radiated a distinct type of energy that all blended so well together. I personally could not see any aspect of this film that could have constituted it being named one of the top 100 films of all time, but I did enjoy the spunk that Allen displays in this film. Throw in cameos from a terribly young Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum and you've at least got my attention.
I understand that separating the art from the artist can often be important, but I can frankly only do so to a certain extent. And this film honestly tells its audience right off the bat the kind of person that Allen is, given that it almost seems autobiographical. The script of this film, written by Allen himself and Marshall Brickman, makes the character of Singer seem like a complete and utter asshole. My main problem with this movie is that it did not make me care about these leads in the slightest. The only thing I felt for the character of Annie was just bad. I felt bad that she had to put up with such a manipulative and cleverly sadistic boyfriend such as Alvy. I have never not cared about a male character as much as I have Allen's and while I'd like to think he wrote him for the audience to cringe at together, I do not think that is the case. I feel like the main issue with Alvy is that he is written to be such a narcissistic and quick-witted pessimist, which was a strangely progressive thing to be in the 1970s. But looking back at his character now, it did not age well and simply makes him come off as a prick. Either that or Allen really does think of himself as the funniest and most charming person on the planet, but his character definitely does not make him seem so. My other main issue with this film was its lack of cohesive story. There really was not an exact plot throughout this film, as the events that unfolded just simply happened. Alvy and Annie break up, get back together, break up again, Alvy nonchalantly sleeps with any woman he can find, and they're back together again. The strange timeline of this movie does not make sense and while I understand that was not necessarily the point, it would have been nice to have any semblance of continuity.
Annie Hall may have paved the way for many of the quirks and eccentricities that come with the romantic comedy genre, but I just simply could not get myself invested in these characters. Thankfully, this movie has an engaging narrative structure and direction or else I would find myself completely hating every minute of it.
My Rating: ★★½
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