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Numerous accomplished female actors have appeared in rom-coms. Usually, when aiming to earn an Academy Award, they must turn for weightier characters. The late Diane Keaton, who died unexpectedly, charted a different course and made it look effortless grace. Her first major film role was in The Godfather, as dramatic an American masterpiece as has ever been made. But that same year, she revisited the character of Linda, the object of a nerdy hero’s affection, in a movie version of the theatrical production Play It Again, Sam. She persistently switched heavy films with romantic comedies during the 1970s, and it was the latter that earned her the Academy Award for leading actress, changing the genre permanently.

The Academy Award Part

The award was for Annie Hall, co-written and directed by Allen, with Keaton as the title character, part of the film’s broken romance. Woody and Diane dated previously before production, and continued as pals throughout her life; during conversations, Keaton described Annie as a perfect image of herself, through Allen’s eyes. One could assume, then, to assume Keaton’s performance required little effort. Yet her breadth in her performances, both between her Godfather performance and her comedic collaborations and within Annie Hall itself, to underestimate her talent with romantic comedy as just being charming – though she was, of course, highly charismatic.

Evolving Comedy

The film famously functioned as Allen’s transition between slapstick-oriented movies and a realistic approach. Consequently, it has numerous jokes, dreamlike moments, and a loose collage of a love story recollection mixed with painful truths into a ill-fated romance. Likewise, Keaton, oversaw a change in U.S. romantic comedies, playing neither the fast-talking screwball type or the glamorous airhead popularized in the 1950s. Instead, she blends and combines traits from both to forge a fresh approach that still reads as oddly contemporary, cutting her confidence short with uncertain moments.

Watch, for example the sequence with the couple initially hit it off after a game on the courts, stumbling through reciprocal offers for a lift (despite the fact that only a single one owns a vehicle). The banter is fast, but zig-zags around unpredictably, with Keaton soloing around her own discomfort before winding up in a cul-de-sac of that famous phrase, a words that embody her quirky unease. The movie physicalizes that feeling in the following sequence, as she has indifferent conversation while navigating wildly through city avenues. Later, she composes herself delivering the tune in a nightclub.

Dimensionality and Independence

These are not instances of the character’s unpredictability. Throughout the movie, there’s a depth to her playful craziness – her lingering counterculture curiosity to try drugs, her fear of crustaceans and arachnids, her refusal to be manipulated by Alvy’s efforts to shape her into someone apparently somber (in his view, that signifies focused on dying). Initially, Annie could appear like an unusual choice to receive acclaim; she plays the female lead in a movie seen from a man’s point of view, and the protagonists’ trajectory fails to result in adequate growth to suit each other. However, she transforms, in ways both observable and unknowable. She merely avoids becoming a more compatible mate for the male lead. Numerous follow-up films stole the superficial stuff – anxious quirks, eccentric styles – without quite emulating Annie’s ultimate independence.

Ongoing Legacy and Senior Characters

Perhaps Keaton felt cautious of that tendency. Following her collaboration with Allen concluded, she stepped away from romantic comedies; her movie Baby Boom is practically her single outing from the complete 1980s period. But during her absence, the film Annie Hall, the persona even more than the unconventional story, served as a blueprint for the style. Meg Ryan, for example, owes most of her rom-com career to Diane’s talent to embody brains and whimsy at once. This cast Keaton as like a permanent rom-com queen despite her real roles being more wives (whether happily, as in the movie Father of the Bride, or not as much, as in that ensemble comedy) and/or moms (see that Christmas movie or Because I Said So) than single gals falling in love. Even in her comeback with Allen, they’re a seasoned spouses brought closer together by comic amateur sleuthing – and she fits the character easily, beautifully.

However, Keaton also enjoyed another major rom-com hit in 2003 with the film Something’s Gotta Give, as a dramatist in love with a younger-dating cad (Jack Nicholson, naturally). The result? One more Oscar recognition, and a whole subgenre of romances where older women (usually played by movie stars, but still!) take charge of their destinies. Part of the reason her loss is so startling is that she kept producing such films up until recently, a regular cinema fixture. Now audiences will be pivoting from assuming her availability to realizing what an enormous influence she was on the rom-com genre as we know it. Should it be difficult to recall contemporary counterparts of those earlier stars who similarly follow in Keaton’s footsteps, that’s likely since it’s uncommon for an actor of Keaton’s skill to dedicate herself to a style that’s mostly been streaming fodder for a long time.

A Special Contribution

Ponder: there are a dozen performing women who received at least four best actress nominations. It’s unusual for a single part to originate in a romantic comedy, let alone half of them, as was the example of Keaton. {Because her