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Plenty of great female actors have appeared in love stories with humor. Typically, if they want to receive Oscar recognition, they need to shift for weightier characters. Diane Keaton, whose recent passing occurred, charted a different course and pulled it off with effortless grace. Her initial breakout part was in The Godfather, as dramatic an American masterpiece as ever produced. But that same year, she revisited the character of Linda, the focus of an awkward lead’s admiration, in a movie version of Broadway’s Play It Again, Sam. She regularly juggled serious dramas with romantic comedies during the 1970s, and the lighter fare that won her an Oscar for outstanding actress, changing the genre permanently.

The Oscar-Winning Role

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. The director and star dated previously before production, and stayed good friends for the rest of her life; when speaking publicly, Keaton portrayed Annie as a perfect image of herself, as seen by Allen. One could assume, then, to think her acting required little effort. However, her versatility in her performances, both between her Godfather performance and her comedic collaborations and within Annie Hall itself, to dismiss her facility with funny romances as merely exuding appeal – although she remained, of course, incredibly appealing.

A Transition in Style

The film famously functioned as the director’s evolution between slapstick-oriented movies and a authentic manner. Consequently, it has lots of humor, dreamlike moments, and a improvised tapestry of a romantic memory mixed with painful truths into a fated love affair. In a similar vein, Diane, led an evolution in American rom-coms, portraying neither the fast-talking screwball type or the sexy scatterbrain common in the fifties. Rather, she mixes and matches elements from each to forge a fresh approach that seems current today, cutting her confidence short with uncertain moments.

Watch, for example the sequence with the couple initially hit it off after a match of tennis, awkwardly exchanging proposals for a lift (despite the fact that only one of them has a car). The exchange is rapid, but meanders unexpectedly, with Keaton navigating her unease before winding up in a cul-de-sac of her whimsical line, a phrase that encapsulates her nervous whimsy. The story embodies that sensibility in the following sequence, as she makes blasé small talk while navigating wildly through city avenues. Subsequently, she composes herself performing the song in a cabaret.

Complexity and Freedom

These aren’t examples of Annie acting erratic. Across the film, there’s a depth to her playful craziness – her hippie-hangover willingness to try drugs, her anxiety about sea creatures and insects, her refusal to be manipulated by Alvy’s attempts to mold her into someone more superficially serious (which for him means preoccupied with mortality). Initially, Annie could appear like an odd character to win an Oscar; she’s the romantic lead in a film told from a male perspective, and the protagonists’ trajectory doesn’t lead to adequate growth to make it work. However, she transforms, in manners visible and hidden. She merely avoids becoming a better match for the male lead. Many subsequent love stories stole the superficial stuff – anxious quirks, eccentric styles – failing to replicate her final autonomy.

Ongoing Legacy and Senior Characters

Maybe Keaton was wary of that pattern. After her working relationship with Allen ended, she took a break from rom-coms; the film Baby Boom is really her only one from the whole decade of the eighties. Yet while she was gone, the character Annie, the persona even 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 skill to embody brains and whimsy at once. This made Keaton seem like a permanent rom-com queen despite her real roles being matrimonial parts (if contentedly, as in the movie Father of the Bride, or more strained, as in The First Wives Club) and/or mothers (see the holiday film The Family Stone or Because I Said So) than unattached women finding romance. Even during her return with Woody Allen, they’re a long-married couple brought closer together by funny detective work – and she eases into the part effortlessly, gracefully.

But Keaton did have a further love story triumph in 2003 with Something’s Gotta Give, as a writer in love with a older playboy (the star Jack Nicholson, naturally). The outcome? Her final Oscar nomination, and a whole subgenre of love stories where mature females (usually played by movie stars, but still!) reclaim their love lives. A key element her death seems like such a shock is that Keaton was still making those movies as recently as last year, a regular cinema fixture. Now audiences will be pivoting from expecting her roles to understanding the huge impact she was on the rom-com genre as it is recognized. Should it be difficult to recall contemporary counterparts of those earlier stars who walk in her shoes, that’s likely since it’s seldom for a star of Keaton’s skill to commit herself to a genre that’s mostly been streaming fodder for a while now.

A Unique Legacy

Reflect: there are ten active actresses who received at least four best actress nominations. It’s uncommon for any performance to originate in a romantic comedy, not to mention multiple, as was the example of Keaton. {Because her