The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

20 Rian Johnson
creates the beauty of it, the bittersweet memories of the relationship. I
think it was near the start of the relationship when they’re in the bookstore,
and she wants to buy the cat book and he wants to get her these
books on death.
On this point, I’d like to contend that Alvy does not have the capacity to
change, that it’s really Annie that has the capacity to change, and that’s
why the movie is named Annie Hall and not Alvy Singer. Film scholars
later pointed out, and I think correctly, that after the relationship is
over, he does change, because he becomes able to appreciate a woman
who could love him. The movie begins with the Groucho Marx joke
that he could never be a member of a club that would have him as a
member. Basically, he’s able to appreciate her as “a club that would have
him as a member.” That comes from Mary Nichols, a film writer.
Johnson: I can see shades of that, but I’m not sure if, at the end of the film,
he met his equivalent. Then he would be able to have a successful relationship
with her. It depends how you define change. His perspective on the
relationship changed, but that might be another one of the reasons why the
film lands so hard for me. I think we all feel like we’ve learned our lesson at
the end of each relationship, and then we start the next one and fuck everything
up again.
I think what Mary Nichols is saying is not that he’s fixed and they can
have a relationship. It’s that he’s able to appreciate her. That joke that
he uses to explain his love life is unrivaled because he’s able to actually
understand that, “Oh, that’s why she could love me.”
Johnson: At the same time he’s not with her. He’s not able to be part of the
club. He’s developed a bittersweet appreciation for it. He’s put it into context,
and come to peace with it, which is growth. That may be the main type of
growth that we’re all capable of as human beings, to gain some perspective
on a chapter in our lives. In terms of that joke unraveling to the point where
he’s somehow overcome the fundamental neurosis behind it, I’m not sure I
agree with that. He’s almost come to accept it, or not accept it, but be able to
say it boldly, as a statement of how he is in life. I’m not sure I agree that he’s
overcome it by the end of it.