Annie Hall DVD > Reviews > Annie Hall

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Outstanding
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	Great film
Disadvantages:	No features !  !

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Although Manhattan gains critical plaudits, and many say that Sleeper and Bananas are his funniest, this, for me, is Allen's best. Annie Hall is the ultimate Woody Allen film; it has a perfect balance of slapstick and verbal humour, it is original and fresh, and it is very engaging, with characters who behave like real people, not constructs, or a means to an end.

You know the story by now; the neurotic Woody Allen character falls head over heels in love with sorta arty, sorta sporty, mainly ditzy Annie Hall (played by the ever wonderful Diane Keaton), and they embark upon a hilarious, if doomed, love affair (this isn't spoiling it- we know from the outset of the film that Woody Allen's character is no longer with Annie Hall).

It features many elements we have come to expect from Woody Allen, not just the neurotic porrayal of himself. We also get the simple black and white credits which open the film (bizarrely at odds with the rest of the film in the austere authority they give the beginning of the film), we get rantings about anti-semitism (Woody Allen's not a "self-hating" Jew, honest) and name dropping aplenty (there's a particuarly random name dropping of Sylvia Plath in one scene, as if Allen's saying "I know my culture, I do".

But the film isn't bitter about romance, unlike some of Woody's latest films (such as Deconstructing Harry or even the critically acclaimed Sweet and Lowdown). Despite being about a failed relationship it is an optmistic film, a feelgood film. You finish it with a smile on your face and your faith in romance and relationships. Woody Allen's films always seem to reflect what is going on in his private life at the time, and this one is no exception; we can see he is a happy man, head over heels in love with leading lady Diane Keaton.

Annie Hall is all you could want in a Woody Allen film, or any film for that matter. It's smart, original, very funny and also kind of sexy. There are many moments that have gone down into comedy history already; such as Christopher Walken's explanation of his dream (in one of his first appearances, and only a year before he won an Oscar for his remarkable role in The Deer Hunter), the lobster scene, or the scene at the party with the cocaine. The film's not just funny; Diane Keaton's nightclub singing scene gives me goosebumps every time, being one of the sexiest scenes Woody Allen, or anybody else for that matter, has ever directed. Unlike most of Allen's work, he never goes for the obvious, crude laugh here, instead preferring character and one liners over smut.

Like most Woody Allen movies on DVD, this one has a dearth of special features. The only real special feature (if you exclude the subtitles or scene selection) is the original theatrical trailer, which is worth a giggle to see how it was initially advertised as a "nervous romance". However, as you can pick this movie up in most places, including online, for less than eight quid, I think this is a forgivable ommission.

It beat Star Wars to best picture in the '78 Oscars (but not at the box office unfortunately!), and it;s not hard to see why. A masterpiece