Life > April 9, 2003

By Hayley Sanders

Old Gold and Black Reviewer

Internationally aclaimed by critics as one of the most clever, bittersweet romances on film and thought of as Woody Allen’s breakthrough work, Annie Hall (1977) dramatically sets itself apart from the director’s previous efforts likeBananas and Take the Money and Run that centered around ongoing gags, spoofs and parodies.

Allen writes, directs and stars in Hall, which managed to receive four Academy Awards in 1977 for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director, and changes his realm of concern, although this film still includes some of his basic recurring motifs of romantic angst, an obsession with New York, exposing intellectual arrogance, concerns with psychosexuality and his classic self-deprecating humor.

The film offers a keen examination of various issues within a modern romantic relationship, focusing on two neurotic, insecure characters, a comedian by the name of Alvie Singer (Allen) and an awkward, yet nervously authentic woman named Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), who dreams of becoming a sultry lounge singer.

But the most brilliant aspect to the film is how it merges completely wacky humor with the morbid melancholy of Alvie.

At one point, Alvie warns Annie of his obsession with the dark aspects of life, when he says, “Those are the two categories, you know. The — the horrible would be like, um, I don’t know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don’t know how they get through life. It’s amazing to me. You know, and the miserable is everone else. That’s — that’s — so — so — when you go through life