{"id":1236398831,"date":"2025-10-11T17:53:51","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T00:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/?p=1236398831"},"modified":"2025-10-13T19:15:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T02:15:22","slug":"diane-keaton-critic-appreciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-reviews\/diane-keaton-critic-appreciation-1236398831\/","title":{"rendered":"Critic\u2019s Appreciation: The Irreplaceable Diane Keaton Modernized the Screwball Heroine With Sophistication, Intellect and Singular Style"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\tThere\u2019s a very funny scene in Ron Howard\u2019s frothy 1984 interspecies rom-com, Splash<\/em>, in which Daryl Hannah, playing a mermaid in Manhattan who swaps her tail for legs, skips out to buy suitable land attire. Given that she emerged from the sea naked, she throws together an outfit from the Tom Hanks character\u2019s closet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThe \u201cfish out of water\u201d turns up on a Bloomingdale\u2019s womenswear floor in a men\u2019s black suit, white shirt, black leather derbies and what looks like a school tie. The ensemble instantly brings a horrified saleslady scurrying over: \u201cOh my God, darling, darling, darling! That outfit is to die from! What happened, you saw Annie Hall<\/em> a hundred times? That look is over<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThat was seven years after the release of Annie Hall<\/em> and the imprint on fashion and popular culture of Diane Keaton\u2019s iconic looks as the title character remained an instantly identifiable reference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tEven more than Marlene Dietrich had done in white tie and tuxedo ensembles in the 1930s, Keaton in Annie Hall<\/em> kickstarted a wave of genderless dressing with her men\u2019s shirts and wide ties, slouchy trousers and oversized jackets, button-up vests and fedoras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tWhat made the layered wardrobe trend resonate \u2014 and continue to be seen on stylish women today \u2014 was how effortlessly cool it looked on Keaton. Her outfits were eccentric but unfussy, tomboyish but distinctly feminine. They made her character appear confident, even at her most insecure. And while the costumes mostly came from shopping expeditions to Ralph Lauren and thrift stores, they were 100 percent reflective of Keaton\u2019s personal style off-camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThe misconception that comedy is easy \u2014 and that Keaton was essentially playing a version of herself \u2014 caused some quiet ripples of discontent when she beat out competition that included Anne Bancroft, Jane Fonda and Shirley MacLaine in dramatic roles to take home the best actress Oscar in 1978.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tBut Keaton\u2019s justly honored performance in Annie Hall<\/em> endures for reasons that go far beyond the synthesis of her on- and offscreen personas. She essentially reinvented the classic screwball heroine for a more socially evolved age. Annie might have come off to a casual observer as a kooky ditz, but she was clever, witty, talented, a sponge for knowledge and, eventually, an assertive voice for her own independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tShe emerged with a wave of actresses in the 1970s and early \u201880s that defied traditional standards of silver-screen glamour by being utterly natural, among them Karen Allen, Brooke Adams, JoBeth Williams, Jill Clayburgh and Margot Kidder. And yet Keaton was very much an original<\/a>, never part of any pack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThe announcement of her unexpected death at 79<\/a>, less than a month after Robert Redford<\/a>\u2019s passing, represents another stinging loss to the pantheon of New Hollywood in the decades before the major studios largely stepped away from making movies for grownups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tIrrespective of your views on the now-controversial figure of Woody Allen, the films he made with Keaton, both during and after their romantic involvement, remain among her most outstanding screen work \u2014 Annie Hall<\/em> and Manhattan<\/em> in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThat\u2019s at least partly because while Keaton\u2019s characters might have been amused by the brainy verbosity and self-deprecating neuroses of Allen\u2019s alter egos, she was never intimidated or outmatched by them. She challenged her writer-director and co-star in ways that few other women in his movies ever have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tKeaton\u2019s innate radiance and verve made her born to play comedy, but she was no less gifted a dramatic actor<\/a>. The women in Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s Godfather<\/em> trilogy are generally submissive. But Keaton made Kay Adams-Corleone \u2014 an initially na\u00efve outsider, favoring love over clarity as she agrees to marry Al Pacino\u2019s Michael Corleone \u2014 the moral tether to the outside world, beyond the vicious criminal enterprises of the Mafia dynasty. She stands up to Michael and walks away, as few others get to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThe same year Annie Hall<\/em> was released, Keaton took on a risky role for a rising-star actress in Looking for Mr. Goodbar<\/em>. In a fearless performance, she played Theresa Dunn, a dedicated schoolteacher whose repressive Catholic upbringing and history of childhood illness become fuel for her defiant sexuality. After feeling used and disrespected in her first experiences with men, Theresa throws herself into an increasingly dark spiral of sleazy pickup bars and hookups with strangers, ultimately with fatal results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tWith a lesser interpreter, the movie might have been just a sensationalistic shocker, but Keaton brought integrity and emotional candor to Theresa\u2019s messy search to define herself. That made it a rare example for its time of a character study that explored a modern woman\u2019s erotic desires without shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tKeaton was tough, impassioned and heart-stirring as feminist journalist and Russian Revolution sympathizer Louise Bryant, starring opposite writer-director (and offscreen partner at the time) Warren Beatty as Bohemian communist activist John Reed in his 1981 historical epic, Reds<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tBut her crowning dramatic achievement came arguably the following year in Alan Parker\u2019s raw, unflinching depiction of marital breakdown Shoot the Moon<\/em>, starring opposite Albert Finney. In an ecstatic New Yorker<\/em> review<\/a>, Pauline Kael described their characters as torn from inside the writer, director and the two stars. Faith Dunlop was a role that allowed Keaton to embrace both depression and steadfast self-possession, refusing to endure more pain from the man she married, even at the cost of great distress to their children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\t\u201cDiane Keaton acts on a different plane from her previous film roles,\u201d wrote Kael. \u201cShe brings the character a full measure of dread and awareness, and does it in a special, intuitive way that\u2019s right for screen acting. Nothing looks rehearsed, yet it\u2019s all fully created.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tAside from Paolo Sorrentino, who gave Keaton red meat to chew on as the formidable American nun and spiritual consigliere in the HBO series The Young Pope<\/em>, it\u2019s disappointing that in the later years of her six-decade career, directors mostly stopped challenging Keaton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tMore often they leaned on her signature quirks and mannerisms, at times pushing her to the point of self-caricature. But Keaton could shine even in humdrum material and there are gems among the many cute comedies she could do with her hands tied behind her back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tOne such keeper is The First Wives Club<\/em>, an effervescent feminist revenge comedy in which Keaton, Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler play women pushed aside for younger models who turn the tables on their philandering ex-husbands. Another is the role that landed Keaton her fourth Oscar nomination, in Nancy Meyers\u2019 advanced-age romantic comedy, Something’s Gotta Give<\/em>. She stars as a whip-smart playwright who\u2019s much more than a foil to Jack Nicholson\u2019s smug playboy, who prides himself on dating only women under 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tWith her sheer, undiminished magnetism alone, Keaton remained a feisty rebuke to that kind of ageism in Hollywood. Her vitality was unextinguishable. We are fortunate to have shared so much of her life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Oscar-winning star of \u2018Annie Hall,\u2019 \u2018Manhattan,\u2019 all three \u2018Godfather\u2019 movies, \u2018Reds\u2019 and \u2018The First Wives Club’ was a one-of-a-kind screen 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Oscar-winning star of \u2018Annie Hall,\u2019 \u2018Manhattan,\u2019 all three \u2018Godfather\u2019 movies, \u2018Reds\u2019 and \u2018The First Wives Club' was a one-of-a-kind screen presence.","_variety-sub-heading":"","mt_seo_title":"Diane Keaton Modernized the Screwball Heroine: Critic's Appreciation","mt_seo_description":"Diane Keaton, the Oscar-winning star of \u2018Annie Hall,\u2019 \u2018Manhattan,\u2019 all three \u2018Godfather\u2019 movies, \u2018Reds\u2019 and \u2018The First Wives Club,' was one of a 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