Review of Annie Hall (1977) by David C — 12 Dec 2013

Woody Allen is famously self-aware, but is he also self-deprecating? Some of "Annie Hall"'s funniest scenes feature him being deprecating to others: a film professor who has no capacity to understand how pretentious he sounds, an alternative theater actor of the kind that cultivates artiness but would never admit to any affectation, and innumerable shallow everymen and women who populate the earth but fail to appreciate life's existential dilemmas.

There is a hilarious moment ("hilarious moment" is a redundancy in this film, as is "cringe-worthy moment") in which Allen's character tries to navigate a car out of a parking lot, and his inability to do so almost seems self-mocking until you remember that it's a way of making a point about the superiority of New York's public transportation and sidewalks.

Allen (his character is not named Woody Allen, but the veil is barely there) also makes an issue out of having gone to therapy sessions for 15 years, but it's up for debate whether his lack of progress there is meant to be taken as a statement on how much is wrong with him or on the inability of professionals to help those whose eyes have so keenly pierced the void.

In either case, Allen shows himself in "Annie Hall" to be not merely self-aware, but very good at recognizing the nature of others. His story and Diane Keaton's acting make Annie an incredibly vivid personality, fully sypathetic, whose arc must take her through Woody and on to other, if not necessarily better, things.