In 1996, Diane Keaton co-starred with Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn in The First Wives Club, which became her biggest hit in years. In fact, adjusted for inflation it remains her biggest hit as a lead in North America (and third only to the first two Godfather movies, where she had a supporting role, overall). It makes sense, then, that a lot of news pieces about her recent death led with The First Wives Club in headlines. For a lot of the country, it may be the movie most closely associated with her.
Keaton’s other 1996 release is far less widely seen; even adjusted for inflation, it made about as much as Love the Coopers. But the big difference between Marvin’s Room and any number of later-period Keaton comedies that outgrossed it is that Keaton received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She and Meryl Streep stand with Katharine Hepburn as some of the only actresses to be nominated in this category over the course of four successive decades. Marvin’s Room, then, was Keaton’s ’90s nomination, and, again, almost certainly the least-seen of her four (the others are Annie Hall, Reds, and Something’s Gotta Give). Fittingly, it co-stars none other than Meryl Streep.
Marvin’s Room also features Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro; that stacked cast, plus its now shudder-inducing Harvey Weinstein production credit, later-’90s release date, and poor box office all implies a certain degree of failed Oscar bait, despite Keaton’s nomination. And given its pedigree, with Scott McPherson adapting his own play, it would be easy to assume it’s just another stage-to-screen translation that didn’t quite work, complete with stage director Jerry Zaks making one of his few forays into film. But it’s a modestly scaled and worthwhile film, featuring Keaton’s finest dramatic performance of that decade (and might only miss her best of the ’90s full stop because she’s so delightful in Manhattan Murder Mystery).
In the following decade, Keaton and Streep would revitalize their careers with a series of comedies about older women, sometimes though not always directed by Nancy Meyers. It’s even arguable that Streep took some of her comedic cues from Keaton’s persona, a sign of how the paradoxically inimitable Keaton nonetheless exerted influence over her peers and successors. In Marvin’s Room, the actresses play estranged sisters who reunite when Bessie (Keaton) is diagnosed with leukemia. Lee (Streep) arrives with her sons, troubled and recently institutionalized 17-year-old Hank (DiCaprio) and 10-year-old Charlie (Hal Scardino), to help Bessie and to get the boys tested for a possible bone marrow transplant that would greatly enhance her cancer treatment. The movie is mostly about the family readjusting to each other. Bessie has been taking care of the sisters’ incapacitated father Marvin (Hume Cronyn) and their less limited but still elderly aunt Ruth (Gwen Verdon) for the past 20 years. The story quietly hinges on whether Lee will be willing to assume those responsibilities, should something happen. De Niro plays Bessie’s doctor, with a friendly but sometimes opaque bedside manner.
The movie is full of past and future intersections. Keaton and Streep were both in Manhattan. Streep and De Niro had The Deer Hunter (and Falling in Love). Later, Keaton and De Niro would appear together in the otherwise forgettable The Big Wedding (they’re also both in Godfather II, but of course do not share any scenes). De Niro and DiCaprio did This Boy’s Life a few years earlier and Killers of the Flower Moon some decades later. Yet there’s still some novelty in this specific combination, where Keaton gets to act opposite both Streep and DiCaprio. In the latter, Bessie coaxes Hank into some measure of honesty, humoring him and loving him until a late scene where she firmly draws the line at his elaborate, self-amused tall tales. Streep and Keaton, meanwhile, are terrific together as two very different women with different perspectives on the perils of dedicating a lifetime to care, whether consciously or without much seeming choice.
Streep sometimes seems to earn an Oscar nomination just for showing up and hitting her marks; she’s clearly doing more than that here, so it’s remarkable that Keaton, rather than Streep, got awards attention. Maybe it could be the Academy tendency to reward the more sympathetic character; Bessie has a saintly patience for the elderly family members whose care she has accepted as her lot in life. It’s not just the simple fact of her character, though. In the film’s emotional climax, she tells her sister just how lucky she considers herself, to be so full of love for her family, a moment that might be unbearably saccharine if not for both the context of the scene and, more importantly, how Keaton plays it. There’s a vulnerability even in her certainty that her path has been a valuable one. It also seems significant that this movie came out around the same time Keaton adopted her first child; there’s an unresolved messiness to this story that reflects real life more than her then-recent (and charming) turns in Father of the Bride and the like.
Given that Keaton spent many of her 21st century movies playing women who are ultimately empowered by the Diane Keaton-ness, white turtlenecks and all, there’s poignancy in her playing a woman who simply doesn’t have time or the fate to be that well-dressed wife, mother, or successfully single career gal. Fabulous revenge fantasies like The First Wives Club obviously have their place, and Keaton’s influence on the modern rom-com is vast. But watching Marvin’s Room, especially after her passing, you may find it carving out a special place in your heart.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.