Plenty of great female actors have starred in romantic comedies. Usually if they want to win an Oscar, however, they have to reach for more serious roles. The late Diane Keaton, who died unexpectedly this week, followed a reverse trajectory and made it look disarmingly natural. Her first major film role was in The Godfather, about as serious an American masterpiece as has ever been made. But that same year, she reprised the part of Linda, the object of a nerdy hero’s affection, in a film adaptation of Broadway’s Play It Again, Sam. (Keaton originated the role opposite playwright Woody Allen on the stage.) She continued to alternate serious dramas with romantic comedies throughout the ’70s, and it was the latter that won her an Oscar for best actress, changing the genre permanently.
That Oscar was for Annie Hall, co-written and directed by Allen, with Keaton as the title character, one half of the movie’s fractured love story. Allen and Keaton had been in a romantic relationship before making the film, and remained close friends for the rest of her life; in interviews, Keaton had characterized Annie as an idealized version of herself, through Allen’s eyes. It would be easy, then, to assume Keaton’s performance involves doing what came naturally to her. But there’s too much range in Keaton’s work, both between her Godfather performance and her Allen comedies and within Annie Hall itself, to dismiss her facility with romantic comedy as simply turning on the charm – though she was, of course, tremendously charming.
