Annie Hall (15)

Following on from The Purple Rose Of Cairo and Sleeper, our Woody Allen season reaches its penultimate offering and it’s safe to say that we are saving the best till last. We now come to what critic Roger Ebert describes as “just about everyone’s favourite Woody Allen film”. It can only be the Academy Award winning Annie Hall, heralded by Allen himself as a “major turning point” in his filmography as it introduced a level of seriousness to his films that were not found in the farces and comedies that were his work to that point.

Originally released in 1977, during the Me Decade, this romantic comedy follows the up and down relationship of two mismatched New York neurotics. Jewish comedy writer Alvy Singer (Allen) ponders the modern quest for love and his past romance with tightly-wound WASP singer Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). The twice-divorced Alvy knows that it's not easy to find a mate when the options include pretentious New York intellectuals and lifestyle-obsessed Rolling Stone writers, but la-di-dah-ing Annie seems different. Along the rocky road of their coupling, Allen/Alvy weigh in on such topics as endless therapy, movies vs. TV, the absurdity of dating rituals, anti-Semitism, drugs, and, in one of the best set pieces, repressed Midwestern WASP insanity vs. crazy Brooklyn Jewish boisterousness. Annie wants to move to Los Angeles to find that fame that finally does in the relationship -- but not before Alvy gets in a few digs at vacuous, mantra-fixated California.

What makes Annie Hall the masterpiece that it is, is in its ability to blend the slapstick and fantasy from his earlier films like  Sleeper (1973) and Bananas (1971) with the more autobiographical musings of his stand-up and written comedy. It also adopts an array of intuitive movie techniques such as talking heads, split screens, and subtitles ultimately resulting in his most mature and personal film of his career. Famous for beating out Star Wars for Best Picture, the film also won Oscars for Allen as director and writer and for Keaton as Best Actress. Annie Hall, all in all, is filled with poignant performances and devastating humor representing a quantum leap for Woody Allen and will remain an American cinema classic.

Don’t miss your chance to see the film that frankly doesn’t need press quotes to prove how amazing it is!

Check out the trailer below:

Annie Hall (15) runs on Saturday 16th June at 10:45am and Wednesday 20th June 7:45pm