La-dee-da, Diane – Reinventing Love After Forty
Diane Keaton passed away on October 12, 2025, and the internet was soon flooded with photos of her younger self. She was Woody Allen’s muse, with whom she made eight films – most of them early in her career – including Annie Hall (1977), for which she won her first and only Oscar, and which remains her most iconic role. Yet her career spanned more than fifty years, and she was one of the few who remained consistently visible in Hollywood, giving through her roles a sense of dignity and hope to ages often overlooked by the industry.
Personally, I discovered her in this later era – when she mostly starred in romantic comedies that she managed to enrich with her unconventional yet always irresistible personality, and with that unique mix of awkwardness and spontaneity that’s impossible to imitate. She always refused to play the “ideal woman,” preferring instead to portray a human one – contradictory, clumsy, but always full of life. Thinking of the evenings when her romantic comedies brought me such joy, here are three memorable roles in which she took romance out of cliché and made it feel real and authentic again.
The First Wives Club (dir. Hugh Wilson, 1996)
It’s probably the film that gave a fresh boost not only to Keaton’s career but also to those of her co-stars Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler – all three over fifty – and it went on to become a global phenomenon among women of their generation. Three childhood friends reunite at the funeral of the fourth member of their group (who has taken her own life) and realise they each have reasons to feel just as hopeless: one struggles with alcoholism and is going through a messy divorce (Hawn), another faces financial difficulties after a recent divorce (Midler), and the third is in therapy for deep-seated insecurities, separated and on the verge of divorce herself (Keaton). Finding strength in one another, the three decide to get back at the husbands who left them for younger women.
Diane Keaton is, by far, the most luminous presence in this warm, easygoing film – remarkable, especially for the 1990s, in the way it celebrates sisterhood and self-discovery at midlife. It gave visibility and power to a group of women still underrepresented even today, standing as proof that there’s always another way forward.
Currently streaming on Netflix.
Something’s Gotta Give (dir. Nancy Meyers, 2003)
Erica (Diane Keaton) is a successful playwright, divorced, with two daughters and a beautiful beach house where she retreats for the weekend with her eldest (played by a young Frances McDormand). There, she finds her younger daughter, Marin, and Marin’s much older boyfriend – Jack (Jack Nicholson), a man in deep denial about his age. When Jack suffers a heart attack during their stay, he is forced to recover at Erica’s house. Though they couldn’t be more different, the two slowly develop a connection and discover that love is still possible at an age many consider hopeless.
At the time, the theme was quite unusual for a romantic comedy – and, truth be told, it still feels fresh today. It’s a delightful film in which Keaton shifts the perspective on women over fifty through her natural charm, vulnerability, and humour. A performance that earned her an Oscar nomination.
Currently streaming on Netflix.
Because I Said So (dir. Michael Lehmann, 2007)
I was 14 when this film came out – a hopeless romantic dreaming of finding my soulmate and getting married by 24. I first watched it because I was a fan of Mandy Moore (her songs were on repeat on my brand-new iPod), but rewatching it years later, I was struck by Diane Keaton’s effortless portrayal of Daphne – a mother of three daughters, desperately trying to find the perfect man for her youngest (Milly, played by Moore), afraid that she’ll repeat her own mistakes.
Keaton plays Daphne with warmth, humour, and her signature mix of chaos and tenderness. Even though the film has plenty of flaws, she manages the impossible: to give depth to a character that could have easily been predictable or shallow, revealing the fragility of a woman growing older yet still searching for meaning, love, and a bit of control over the unknown.
Film producer and founder of ADFR, she dreamed since she was little of having a magazine one day. Alongside her job as editor-in-chief, she writes the interview of the month. She loves animals, jazz music and films festivals.
Film producer and founder of ADFR, she dreamed since she was little of having a magazine one day. Alongside her job as editor-in-chief, she writes the interview of the month. She loves animals, jazz music and films festivals.
