Diane Keaton was nominated for Best Actress Oscars across four consecutive decades. Marvin’s Room was her little-seen ’90s nom.
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.
