The actor Diane Keaton died on 11 October 2025. She left behind a decades-long legacy of popular hits, critically acclaimed performances, and a powerful influence over fashion and women’s position in Hollywood. She made her performing debut on Broadway, featuring in the original production of Hair in 1968. The following year she won a Tony Award for her role in Woody Allen’s play Play It Again, Sam – a role she repeated in 1972 when Herbert Ross directed the film adaptation.

Keaton ultimately performed in six Woody Allen features, and cameoed in a seventh. It was a key creative partnership that established her as a strong comedic performer and earned her an Academy Award for Annie Hall (1977). She was outstanding in all of the films she made with Allen. With her death it felt appropriate to revisit one. I chose Love and Death (1975).

Boris Grushenko (Allen), a scrawny and cowardly Russian peasant, is forced to go to war against the French across early 19th century Europe. It separates him from his cousin Sonja (Keaton), the love of his life. When they are finally reunited, she proposes a dangerous mission to him that he cannot refuse: assassinate Napoleon Bonaparte (James Tolkan).

Allen’s parody of classical Russian literature captures the comedian and filmmaker at a critical juncture in his career. His earlier films – Bananas, Take the Money and Run, Sleeper – are all much more actively comedic works, packed with literal gags and appealing to a much broader audience. His subsequent films are more intellectual in nature, reflecting Allen’s own interests in philosophy, classical literature, and European cinema. Love and Death is an even mixture of the two: the obvious jokes are still very much in evidence, but half them do not land without at least a passing knowledge of the great Russian novels. If you know your Dostoevsky from your Pushkin, this represents a scattershot but amusing farce, otherwise it may not be the film for you. The standard Woody Allen caveats also apply, obviously. His films – and his neurotic on-screen persona – are an acquired taste for money, and he remains dogged by controversy and arguments over his private life. If he is not for you, you will get no argument from me.

Keaton is excellent as the philosophical Sonja, who ignores Boris’ infatuation in favour of a comically long list of sexual lovers. It is funny because it is such improbable behaviour for a 19th century Russian woman, but also because Keaton’s performance treats it as such a banal and uninteresting aspect of her life. There is a deadpan nature to her character here that completely accentuates the humour. She plays very well against Allen’s more manic, nervous energy.

James Tolkan (Back to the Future) is also an excellent Napoleon, playing well against type and making him seem a particularly 1970s sort of a character.

An adapted Prokofiev score is knowingly amusing and tonally appropriate. Some of the jokes are genuinely hilarious, others have perhaps dated a bit too much – or maybe they never worked at all. It is a fun Allen film all told, giving his original comic sensibilities one of their final hurrahs, while pointing to a more interesting and sophisticated writer/director in the future. And Keaton? She is just marvellous – and will be deeply missed.