It begins by breaking the fourth wall. You are being personally addressed, essentially told how the movie will end, and then taken on a somewhat non sequiter journey that seems almost anecdotal. Every scene could begin with: "there was this time where..." It makes the abstract breaches in the narrative feel not like breaches but rather tangents. This movie isn't just for you the viewer, but you the audience, who not only are spoken to, but on occasion rise out of the crowd and into the screen to address him.
I seem to be gushing which is strange; Annie Hall's not going on my top ten or anything and isn't even my favourite Woody Allen movie, but watching it for the first time in 2011 probably means something that it may not have in 1977. Anyone could name ten recent rom coms with forgettably straightforward plots, obvious writing, absolutely no bite and nothing to say. And Anne Hall at least has something to say. Maybe "better to have loved and lost" is an old sentiment, but Allen applies it to the transitory nature of life in general and maybe reminds us that while romance is important, it's not everything. Love is great, but it's fickle, nerve-wracking, frustrating, and self-contradicting. Still, it is pretty great.
A lot of this movie is a vehicle for Woody Allen to voice his observations on the American culture of his day and his frustration with social interaction in general, but it benefits from Allen's talent for getting his points across and tell a good joke while doing it. It's also another addition to the pile of love songs for New York City he's made, though it seems to be of a secondary concern to him here (as opposed to some other films of his). But the strength of Annie Hall is I think that it was also Allen's chance to indulge a desire to experiment with form and storytelling, using elements that could fail with ease but that he manages to pull off. Though it occasionally verges on masturbatory, sometimes watching someone masturbate can be pretty hilarious.
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