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I saw the original film back on the 70s with my husband when we were courting and when I saw the DVD listed it brought back very happy memories of of laughter and fun with the love of my life who sadly died 10 years ago. Diane Keaton has been been one of my favourite actresses ever since. Thank you for sending it so quickly, cheered me during these long lonely days of covid.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Entertaining
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
This is by far the best film ever written and directed by Woody Allen in his 40+ year career in film-making. Every shot has a meaning to it, decorated by a witty humour which only a person of the calibre can come up with. DVD collectors or otherwise should definately find a way to own this film!
Every year that passes by, there the usual batch of romantic comedies that follow the regular contrived plotlines specific to this genre - ditzy girl meets pessimistic boy, cue pseudo-charismatic dialogue, lots of arguing, cue break-up over nothing, cue sentimental make-up, cue credits. Well, “Annie Hall” is a rare breed of cinema which takes all of these clichés and not only improves on them, but turns the genre on its head with a series of ingenious directorial muscle-flexes and witty repartees that would make even the most cynical film fan sigh with unrivalled joy. This film not only re-invents the romance genre, but it also signed its own suicide not before the credits even roll - let us not forget that this film has successfully spawned an endless line of Meg Ryan “rom-coms” and inflicted the seemingly endless line of “ditzy” female protagonists. “Annie Hall”, the winner of the 1978 Best Picture Oscar (beating Star Wars to the punch, no less), is Woody Allen's seventh film in the director's chair, and his first "serious" movie. Inspired by Ingmar Bergman's work to create something a little more significant than his previous slapstick approaches (or "slapdash", as Allen himself preferred to call it), “Annie Hall” is the veteran comedian's breakout film. The plotline is, as previously mentioned is a fairly standardized one - Annie Hall (played by Diane Keaton, who won the 1978 Best Actress Academy Award for her turn here), a quirky Midwestern nightclub singer, meets Alvy Singer, a neurotic stand-up comic. The story of their doomed romance unfolds via a fast-paced cinematic free-for-all set against the backdrop of Allen’s beloved Manhattan borough; everything from reality blurring seamlessly into fantasy, characters communicating through a split-screen shot, flashbacks which integrate the past and present in a flourish of comedic brilliance, subtitles which reveal character's true feelings and Allen's hang-ups projected into animated asides. This entire series of structural and narrative plot devices combine to a dizzying effect, held together by a string of standalone one-liners in which their intricacies only seem to bear an increasing amount of fruit with each viewing. “Annie Hall” has secured its place in film history as a certified classic and a textbook example of Woody Allen’s key thematic pre-occupations; the latent despondency present in human relationships, the harsh reality of ever-looming death, the vapidity of New York and its intellectual upper-classes, and the general presence of neurotic hang-ups which plague the post-modern person living in a rapidly deteriorating society. Whilst “Annie Hall” would be the most affable induction to Woody’s later period, Allen’s best would be yet to come. Allen would go on to refine his themes in “Manhattan”, in which he, I dare say, perfects the stylistic premises presented in Annie Hall and hones them into a sophisticated script which sparkles with maturity and a relentless wit.Read full review
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