Review of Annie Hall (1977) by Guy G — 26 Sep 2011

[B/80] There's obviously a feeling here that Allen reached a new level in balancing his wacky social send-ups, goofball energetics, and self-obsessed observations with a nice touch of more personal romanticism and human depth, beginning a new chapter in his filmmaking. It's very fun stuff that clicks all along the way with a jaunty, liberated quality fueled by Allen's endless neuroses and misgivings, expressed perfectly in the dramatic dichotomies between Jewish New York angst and Midwestern WASP monotony or California vapidity.

35+ years on, some of the gags may seem a little too self-assured and dated, while all the arty playfulness sometimes can't disguise a bunch of backhanded intellectual pretense that does the comedy no credit, and subtracts from the kind of cohesion Allen would achieve in many of his subsequent works. A 70s movie through and through, brilliant, sometimes over-referential, but a lot of fun.