Annie Hall and the New Era of Film

Woody Allen’s 1977 seminal work and Academy Award-winning film Annie Hall ushered in a new age of the romantic comedy – the radical romantic comedy. Though the radical romantic comedy had certainly been touched upon on screen before, no film before Annie Hall had the pervasiveness and ingenuity that Allen brought to life.

            Alvy Singer and Annie Hall portray a curious late 1970’s romantic pair – a intellectual, neurotic New York Jew and a kind-hearted yet ditzy country girl who base much of their relationship on sex and needing the other’s polarities in nature to live happily. Many of the problems that exist between the two spawn from Alvy’s reticence to venture out from his comfort zone, and Annie’s malleable nature as opposed to what Alvy represents in his egocentric staunchness.     In several respects it comes off as surprising that Annie and Alvy are together for as long as they are, though they ultimately do split up in the end.

            Not only does the ending of Annie Hall present the radical romantic comedy to audiences, but also the content in and of itself does wholly. The characters consistently break the fourth wall, Alvy and Annie openly and candidly speak about their sex life, and there seems to be no taboos in the film. Certainly Woody Allen had previously established himself and his comedy at least ten years prior to Annie Hall, but it wasn’t until this film that such a sub-genre resonated with the public so greatly and influenced the course of comedies and romantic comedies to come.

             The character of Annie Hall herself is also innovative – she is a righteous, self-confident and dynamic woman who, though perhaps with unintelligence and misguidedness, first embarks upon the decision to leave Alvy, who is initially thoroughly opposed to the idea. Instead of the principal guideline of the “boy-meets girl, boy looses girl, boy gets girl back” is broken, with Annie the principal guiding force of the eventual outcome of the relationship

            Annie Hall is an introspective look into the lives of two experienced people who face the trials and tribulations of sex, public and family opinion, and their fate at the hands of each other. It is indeed a beautiful and sentimental slice of life captured by Allen, exemplifying the nature of man and woman, and ultimately man and woman in their coexistent nature. In the words of Alvy Singer, “Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships. You know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd and, but, err, I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.”