David Denby

“…. Woody Allen's new movie, Annie Hall, is a great romantic comedy and extraordinary breakthrough….

“Allen has committed himself to telling the story of his early-'70s affair with Diane Keaton. In Annie Hall he and Keaton play characters so close to their actual selves that quibbling over the discrepancies is a waste of time. As Alvy Singer… Allen wins and then loses the love of Annie Hall (Keaton), a beautiful, ingenuous, confused but intuitively smart young woman from the Midwest. Out of the pain and exhilaration of their affair Allen (with the help of co-writer Marshall Brickman) has created a realistic narrative that holds you emotionally. The comic highs are more daring and a lot more abrasive than before, and because they are part of an emotional progression, they stay in your head afterwards….

“At the risk of sounding ungrateful, I should point out that as good as they are, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton aren't quite Astaire and Rogers or Tracy and Hepburn. Certainly Allen has improved immensely as an actor….

“Allen is a lot more generous to Diane Keaton here than ever before. In Play It Again, Sam and Sleeper she seemed to have little substance apart from her enforced role as a beautiful girl who might go to bed with him or turn him down--she seemed never to escape his fantasies. But finally, in Love and Death (1975) spouting philosophical gibberish with burning eyes and upraised voice Keaton broke into a manic life of her own. Her naiveté is still fresh in Annie Hall: the immense batting eyes, the twisting hands and stammering speech seem produced by the moment at hand rather than layered-on. However, one realizes how easily she could become a brunette Sandy Dennis--all flutter and no center. The movie is entitled after her character's name because she's the one who changes the most, but there's still something vague and undefined about her. The only alternative to her gosh-gee-whiz (I don't care for her singing, which is over-stylized and coy) seems to be a blank, stiff-backed sternness. Possibly Allen overvalues her abilities because he feels comfortable acting with her; her own gentle insecurities cushion his thundering neuroses, and he can get nasty and whiny with her without fear of heavy retaliation. The comic possibilities of his confronting a really domineering type are suggested in one brief, devastating scene after Diane has left him: a tall, dark-haired, young woman--a lawyer, perhaps, or a hospital supervisor--stares at him in incomprehension after he makes a joke. [I think Denby is referring to the misguided pair of “lobster” scenes.] We draw our breath sharply, for an artist has made his point: nothing divides people faster than a different sense of humor.”

David Denby
Boston Phoenix, May 3, 1977
[haven’t read all]