Pauline Kael

“....Diane Keaton has been much luckier. In her Woody Allen comedies, her specialty has been lyrical neurosis--which can be deliriously reassuring to the nervous wrecks in the audience. As Annie Hall, Diane Keaton redeemed the flustered confusion of urban misfits--who fits in this city?--and made it romantic. In ... more conventional roles ..., she seemed a graceful, highly competent comedienne, in a fresh, very American manner. In Woody Allen pictures, this competence is replaced by something more distinctive: she seems helplessly aware of the ineffability of her feelings. She's the mildest form of crazy lady, not threatening to anybody, just bewildered about herself.... The amateurish, self-conscious looseness that Diane Keaton has with Allen works for her.... She turns apologetic self-doubt into a style. When she sings, she lacks a rhythmic sense, but she flirts her way through a song, rolling her clear eyes and acting out the suggestiveness of the lyrics. She becomes a consciously naughty little girl. And all the time she emanates warmth--miraculously, naturally. It's in her long-legged softness, in her coloring, her flesh tones, her sunny, broad smile.

“Diane Keaton draws so much empathy you don't worry too much about her skill. It's there, though. An actress who could retain her grace in the crude muck of I Will, I Will... For Now must have reserves of training.... [T]he dazed, iridescent Annie...”

Pauline Kael
New Yorker, date?
When the Lights Go Down, 316-8
(rev. of Looking for Mr. Goodbar)