A comedian reeling on the verge of despair, a scatterbrained dreamer wanting everything from nothing and a romance of a lifetime. That’s all there is to say about Annie Hall. A movie which is so much in love with itself that it becomes infectious, so much in awe with its themes that they resonate almost equivocally. Through tightly edited screenplay and poignant direction, Woody Allen has crafted a wisdom tooth for all ages.

Almost always ranked in the higher echelon of Allen’s directorial efforts, Annie Hall is a marvel of cynicism. So much so, that it floods nearly every verbal exchange, plays on the faces of the lead characters and even lurks in the dusky corners of New York. The undertone commentary on the ephemeral nature of love and how we attach our happiness to something so transitory is almost stinging. It made relevance in 80’s, 90’s and holds much stronger grounds in today’s day and age.

Talking about the director himself, Woody Allen has written the shit out of Annie Hall. Each line is slyly quotable, each conversation begs a repeat viewing. On top of his idiosyncratic and narcissistic self, he stutters his preaching about the universality of emotions and eventual fading of them all. And the central protagonist played by Allen himself: Alvy Singer, well, this is it, this is where the search for a ‘me’ in an endless charade of movie character ends. Depressed, cynical, anti-social and yet a dire romancer.

Annie Hall felt like tearing open my favorite wrapping from a large box of candies tailor-made for my liking. It’s food for my sapiosexual soul, light to the mundane horrors of rom-coms that plague today’s generation. It is exceptionally witty with its deadpan humor and unnaturally simple in its scope of relationships. Annie Hall is, without doubt, a bonafide classic.

★★★★½