I love this film's non traditional approach to the Romantic Comedy genre. The film was absolutely hilarious, but not in the expected, tired, and tawdry ways we have come to except from the genre. Woody Allen is witty and very perceptive in all his relationships. He has an uncanny ability to sense the exact point in the relationship where it is beyond any help, like in his previous marriages and then with Annie. The film does not just focus on the narrow scope of the relationship, but shows other factors like jobs, location, drug use, family ideals that all effect a relationship.
The cutaways provide a running narrative into the insights and concerns of the main characters, allowing us to actually know what they are thinking, not just forced to guess from dialogue and body language. It shows that there is a lot of underlying tensions under the surface of a relationship, giving this movie greater relevance and truth than most other romantic comedies.
That's what really bothers me about feel good movies like The Notebook or The Vow, they are not at all realistic. Annie Hall demonstrates that just because the audience may be rooting for the couple to make it work in the end, you can still produce a great movie, despite it having a sad, but realistic ending. Our culture is currently obsessed with the idea of a fairy tale ending every time and believes that it isn't good unless that is how it ends. I suggest to others out there to watch The Producer or Sunset BLVD, because these movies poke fun at this phenomena.
