Directed by Nancy Meyers, who would go on to make ‘The Holiday’ three years later, ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ is a romantic comedy that unapologetically centres older characters – and that in itself makes it noteworthy. Diane Keaton received an Oscar nomination for her performance, playing a woman in her late 50s opposite Jack Nicholson’s 63-year-old serial bachelor.

Nicholson plays Harry, a wealthy music executive who has never settled down and exclusively dates women decades younger than himself. It’s a familiar Nicholson persona  – charming, grinning, unapologetically lecherous – not unlike his role in ‘The Witches of Eastwick’. The comic twist here is that Harry unexpectedly realizes the person he should be with isn’t his much younger girlfriend… but her mother.

The film gently but persistently asks whether people can change their habits late in life – and what the emotional, psychological, and even medical costs of commitment might be. Harry’s lifestyle catches up with him in the form of a heart attack, and he’s treated by a younger doctor, played by Keanu Reeves, who promptly falls for Diane Keaton’s Erica. That gives us a neat romantic quadrangle: older man with younger women, younger man with an older woman – a demographic shift that the film treats with warmth rather than mockery.

Keaton is particularly compelling. She brings back some of the vulnerability and neurosis that made ‘Annie Hall’ so enduring – a woman who has buried herself in work and quietly assumed that romance is behind her. Erica is a successful playwright, and there’s a wonderfully meta touch when she begins writing a play that looks suspiciously like her own relationship with Harry.

Nicholson, by contrast, is barely asked to stretch. He is good at playing rich, smug, perpetually surrounded by women, and yet it works. There’s a terrific gag where we learn he runs the second-largest hip-hop label in America, despite having no discernible connection to hip-hop culture whatsoever. A party scene confirms this, populated entirely by people who look as if they wouldn’t recognise a hip-hop track if it hit them over the head.

The script is full of sharp, sitcom-ready lines. One of the best has Harry insisting, “I’ve never lied to you – I’ve always told you some version of the truth.” It neatly sums up the moral slipperiness the film is quietly critiquing.

What’s also striking is the sheer calibre of talent passing through. John Favreau appears in a supporting role around the time he was directing ‘Elf’, and Frances McDormand – already an Oscar winner – pops up briefly too. These roles feel almost incidental, but they add to the sense of a well-appointed, star-studded world.

Ultimately, ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ works because of Keaton. Her character is emotionally rich and believable, even when the film around her feels slightly padded or indulgent. It may not tax Nicholson much, but it gives Keaton the space to explore what it means to risk vulnerability later in life – and that’s where the film finds its heart.