Annie Hall

Annie Hall
1977

“There’s this old joke about these two old ladies eating at a Catskill mountain resort. One says to the other, ‘The food here is so terrible!’ The other one responds, ‘I know, and such small portions!’ That’s essentially how I feel about life. It’s full of misery and loneliness and unhappiness and it’s all over too quickly.” This is Alvie Singer’s, the balding forty year old protagonist of Annie Hall, mantra for life. He swears he’s not depressed. And he never has been. It’s not like when he was eight he quit functioning because he found out the universe was expanding and was convinced that meant it was soon going to break apart. It’s not like he gives his new girlfriend Annie of only a week or so two books on dying. It’s not like he’s been seeing an analyst for fifteen years. Noooooooo. He’s not depressed. Poor Alvie.

Side note. Is there a difference between analyst and therapy? If so can someone explain it to me? I think you would get like mega bonus points.

Anyway, as Alvie is assuring us he is not depressed he also tells us he broke up with Annie and hasn’t gotten used to it yet. I don’t feel bad about telling you this as this happens within the first minute of the movie. Sadly. He decides to look back and pinpoint that one moment when things went totally wrong, and from that journey, we receive the beautifully crafted gift of Annie Hall.

As I try to explain what I loved about this movie, I am finding it increasingly harder to not be a cliché ridden twelve year old who has never taken a writing course in her life. I could say “Oh I liked it.” But that doesn’t really say much and that just makes me sound like a yoyo. Heehee. That’s a phrase from Annie Hall. Annie says it, along with la de da. Annie, of the title, is a grown up loveable dork. I have lost count of how many times in the movie she went, “Yeah… Yeah? Yeah!” She constantly has her hands on her hips in a Superman pose as is she is ready to go off flying and is the worst driver you will ever see in reel or real life (Oh just look how clever I am!) I drive better than her, and that my friends is saying something. And yet, all that dorkyness, played perfectly quirkily by Diane Keaton, who won Best Actress for this role, is charming. We along with Alvie fall in love with Annie. “George had that thing, where you fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, Narcolepsy! So anyway, George went to the union to get his free turkey because the union always gave him a free turkey at Christmastime because he was shell-shocked during the first world war. So he was standing in line getting his free turkey but then he falls asleep and never wakes up! So he’s dead. He’s dead. Yeah.” These are some of the first words she says to Alvie and because she’s the wonderful Annie, she gets away with it.

Creativity oozed out of this movie like pus out of an infected wound. That may be a gross simile but hey it’s late at night and I spend too much time with my little brothers. Alvie laments his various woes and complaints to either random strangers he stops on the street or the invisible cameras that apparently follow him. Just imagine that. Imagine if you could stop for a minute and ask a random question to any person on the road and they would have the answer to what you should do!
“Should I buy this yellow car here or this blue truck here oh wise stranger?”
“Neither Kelsey. Go buy the monkey you’ve always dreamed about.”
If only real life were like that.
The genius Woody Allen, who not only directed this movie, but also wrote it, winning an Oscar, and starred in it as Alvy (casting yourself as a lead seems a bit narcissistic to me), used a literal split screen many times during the movie. Two things would be happening to show the two very different sides of view leading to often hysterical events. He wrote this to perfection. It was witty and clever, and often laugh out loud funny. Like the cocaine sneezing (yes, sneezing) scene. I could go on, but I would ruin the movie, and that would be a terrible thing to do and I would be very sad indeed to do that.
I sorta fell in love with this movie. As I wrote this, I debated just laying down what happens and adding my opinion here and there. And believe me there will be times as I blog movies that that’s going to happen. But A) this movie was filmed non linear so that would be SO irritating to do and B) it would completely ruin it for people. As I sorta love this movie I would never want to ruin it for others. It would get mad at me and I just can’t have that. So did this movie deserve to win Best Picture in my humble always right opinion? I think so. And I am glad for once a movie that was funny and was just looking at relationships, not trying to fix humanity or make a bold statement with its message won. I highly enjoyed this movie. And for the record, Woody Allen is terribly terrific.