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Many talented actresses have appeared in rom-coms. Ordinarily, if they want to receive Oscar recognition, they need to shift for weightier characters. The late Diane Keaton, who passed away recently, followed a reverse trajectory and made it look disarmingly natural. Her debut significant performance was in The Godfather, as dramatic an cinematic masterpiece as has ever been made. However, concurrently, she reprised the part of the character Linda, the object of a nerdy hero’s affection, in a cinematic take of the theatrical production Play It Again, Sam. She continued to alternate serious dramas with funny love stories during the 1970s, and the lighter fare that secured her the Oscar for leading actress, altering the genre for good.

The Academy Award Part

The award was for the film Annie Hall, written and directed by Woody Allen, with Keaton as the title character, part of the film’s broken romance. Allen and Keaton were once romantically involved before making the film, and continued as pals until her passing; in interviews, Keaton portrayed Annie as an idealized version of herself, through Allen’s eyes. One could assume, then, to believe her portrayal meant being herself. Yet her breadth in Keaton’s work, contrasting her dramatic part and her Allen comedies and within Annie Hall itself, to dismiss her facility with romantic comedy as merely exuding appeal – although she remained, of course, incredibly appealing.

A Transition in Style

Annie Hall notably acted as Allen’s shift between more gag-based broad comedies and a more naturalistic style. Consequently, it has plenty of gags, fantasy sequences, and a loose collage of a relationship memoir alongside sharp observations into a doomed romantic relationship. Likewise, Keaton, oversaw a change in American rom-coms, portraying neither the screwball-era speed-talker or the bombshell ditz popularized in the 1950s. On the contrary, she fuses and merges traits from both to create something entirely new that seems current today, halting her assertiveness with nervous pauses.

Watch, for example the scene where Annie and Alvy Singer initially bond after a match of tennis, awkwardly exchanging proposals for a ride (even though only one of them has a car). The dialogue is quick, but zig-zags around unpredictably, with Keaton maneuvering through her unease before ending up stuck of that famous phrase, a expression that captures her anxious charm. The movie physicalizes that tone in the next scene, as she makes blasé small talk while operating the car carelessly through Manhattan streets. Subsequently, she finds her footing performing the song in a club venue.

Dimensionality and Independence

This is not evidence of the character’s unpredictability. Across the film, there’s a depth to her gentle eccentricity – her hippie-hangover willingness to sample narcotics, her anxiety about sea creatures and insects, her resistance to control by the protagonist’s tries to mold her into someone more superficially serious (which for him means focused on dying). In the beginning, Annie could appear like an unusual choice to earn an award; she’s the romantic lead in a movie seen from a man’s point of view, and the central couple’s arc doesn’t bend toward sufficient transformation accommodate the other. But Annie evolves, in manners visible and hidden. She simply fails to turn into a better match for the male lead. Plenty of later rom-coms stole the superficial stuff – nervous habits, eccentric styles – failing to replicate her final autonomy.

Ongoing Legacy and Senior Characters

Perhaps Keaton felt cautious of that trend. After her working relationship with Allen concluded, she took a break from rom-coms; Baby Boom is really her only one from the entirety of the 1980s. However, in her hiatus, the film Annie Hall, the role possibly more than the loosely structured movie, emerged as a template for the style. Star Meg Ryan, for example, owes most of her rom-com career to Keaton’s ability to play smart and flibbertigibbet simultaneously. This rendered Keaton like a permanent rom-com queen even as she was actually playing matrimonial parts (whether happily, as in that family comedy, or less so, as in that ensemble comedy) and/or moms (see The Family Stone or Because I Said So) than single gals falling in love. Even in her comeback with Allen, they’re a established married pair drawn nearer by funny detective work – and she slips into that role effortlessly, gracefully.

Yet Diane experienced an additional romantic comedy success in 2003 with the film Something’s Gotta Give, as a playwright in love with a younger-dating cad (the star Jack Nicholson, naturally). The result? Her final Oscar nomination, and a whole subgenre of love stories where older women (typically acted by celebrities, but still!) take charge of their destinies. Part of the reason her passing feels so sudden is that Keaton was still making such films as recently as last year, a frequent big-screen star. Now audiences will be pivoting from expecting her roles to grasping the significant effect she was on the rom-com genre as we know it. Is it tough to imagine present-day versions of such actresses who walk in her shoes, the reason may be it’s rare for a performer of her talent to dedicate herself to a category that’s frequently reduced to digital fare for a recent period.

A Special Contribution

Reflect: there are ten active actresses who earned several Oscar nods. It’s uncommon for any performance to originate in a romantic comedy, not to mention multiple, as was the example of Keaton. {Because her