Home \ Signature Roles \ Manhattan (1979) — Diane Keaton
DIANE KEATON · 1979 · SIGNATURE ROLES
Mary Wilke is a journalist, the mistress of Woody Allen’s best friend Yale, and then, briefly, the lover of Allen’s own character, Isaac.
Mary Wilke is a journalist, the mistress of Woody Allen’s best friend Yale, and then, briefly, the lover of Allen’s own character, Isaac. Diane Keaton plays Mary as the most modern voice in a film about people behaving badly in beautiful black-and-white New York: sharp, self-aware, funny, and honest about her own contradictions.
Her scenes with Allen — the arguments in museums and at parties, the breakup that is also a kind of recognition — are the film’s liveliest, because Keaton plays Mary as an equal, not a prize. Manhattan is often remembered for its Gershwin score and its skyline, but its heart is Keaton’s Mary: a woman who knows what she wants and is not afraid to say it, even when it costs her.
