Romance is a Hard Sell | Zadie Smith | TIFF 2017

[@gregoryharris2207]

Very insightful perspective on Annie Hall.

[@Velvet0Starship2013]

Too bad it's wrong! Laugh. Eg: "Annie Hall's" style of dress is established as quirky/ charming/ wholly her own from the moment they first meet and it stays that way... and the books she was given by the "Alvy" character, to read (shown in the scene in which they're moving apart) were merely set-ups for jokes about his pessimism; they never got read by her anyway. They drift apart as she's pursuing her own singing career; if the movie were structured as Zadie imagines it is, "Annie" would "finally" begin singing after they'd parted. No: the "Alvy" character supports her throughout. The movie isn't applauding Annie's leaving as a "healthy" move or "empowering": it insinuates that the relationship failed *because she's an airhead who prefers fleeting pop-culture pleasures (like the Grammies)* and fame/money (and chasing it by being drawn to the oily record producer played by Paul Simon, who name-drops "Jack and Angelica") and hasn't the depth to understand or empathize with "Alvy's" darker, more sensitive and knowing view of existence. The movie is a character study that places Woody Allen's character at its moral center (like Manhattan), ironically, and is "affectionate" (with misogynist chivalry) about Annie's "shiksa" shortcomings. NY = Serious; LA = Airhead. Woody = NY, Annie = LA. And Annie is merely the latest in a long line of not-quite-good-enough women; Carol Kane ("Allison Portchnik") isn't good enough; Shelly Duvall ("Rolling Stone reporter") isn't good enough...the movie is a kind of Goldilocks narrative in which Goldilocks (Allen) tries bed after bed with no luck... because he's too Sensitive and too Good, one supposes. I'm afraid Zadie re-imagined "Annie Hall" to fit it to contemporary pieties and cultural obsessions. Her reading is _dazzlingly_ off. It is, fittingly, a Fiction.

[@Jamthecoolerator]

@@Velvet0Starship2013 Nope, you're the one that's wrong. It isn't the women who are not good enough, it's Woody.

[@jon8004]

​@@Velvet0Starship2013 I'm sorry, but I don't think you understand what the original commenter or Smith is talking about. They're talking about it as a matter of form, why it's so hard to imitate. "Annie Hall" was, in fact, rediscovered in the editing room after the completed movie essentially collapsed on Allen. He thought the movie was so bad that he begged United Artists to destroy the negative and he offered to direct a movie for them for free in return. To this day, he doesn't really love the movie because he only sees it as the failure of his early intentions. You're also wrong about the movie's subtext. Many of Allen's romantic movies suggest in the subtext that he knows he's not a good influence on the woman he's pursuing. If you think Allen's movies place him as the "moral center", you're seeing only the surface text. As a filmmaker, he's 100% aware of his neuroses, his instinct to manipulate and his hypocrisy. He never sees himself as a hero. You seem to misunderstand his entire worldview. You should watch "Manhattan" where some of these things are more explicit.