Love Story (1970)

Good movie but grossly overrated

As Good As It Gets

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Youth have always masked their true intentions with heavy doses of sarcasm and insult. You see this in the playground, with juvenile crushes, and how it usually starts with some brash words to each other. I recall Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse having a particularly piercing candid moment where this trope gets stripped away. In Love Story we find the same attractions, because they are still fresh- faced college students and not yet ready for the real world. They bristle at each other from two vastly different social classes, which have been decided because of the superficial details that we first notice about a stranger. Their words drip with disdain because they don't want to seem vulnerable. Naturally, this calls for a first and second date. It's all very cute, because we know they are attracted to each other and that they will invariably end up together. Annoyed, he asks why she is still interested in him after they have been at each other's throats, and smirking, she replies: "I like your body." This results in a stupid grin on Oliver Barrett IV's face. She has the same look, because she knows the hold she has over him (being a boy), but also because she isn't entirely being sarcastic. Then comes the expected honeymoon period, most often depicted with a gleeful montage of the couple unable to keep their hands off each other over some stirring song. Hiller does well to make it interesting; when Jenny first utters those fatal, all important three words, he cuts to Oliver falling backwards as if in a dreamy daze, while also doubling as a transition to their blissful play in the snow. There is also the unavoidable first meeting with the parents, and while the Barretts are every bit the stuffy, preppy stereotypes that Jenny initially disdains (he is less father and more military commander), Hiller has fun with it. It starts awkwardly, as expected, with everyone in the room perhaps already having cast their judgements. The polite small talk rips apart any last minute misgivings they might have; Barrett Senior inquires into which company her father runs, and she replies, unwavering: "Phil's Bake Shop." MacGraw's delivery of the line is excellent - she makes it funny, but without comprising herself by offering up the remark as something to be ashamed of. But what is really wonderful about this scene is the editing. It jumps back and forth between the awkward silence and the roar of the engine and Oliver's indignation afterwards. Initially it cuts away before a word is even spoken, because it can't bear the second-hand embarrassment of the scene, and recounts it from there. The cuts play with the dialogue, matching what shouldn't be matched, trying to make sense of it all when it is obvious that Jenny will not be an acceptable addition to the family. Do they have chemistry? It is something that is a must for any romance, and I think they do, in spite of how they might be polar opposites of each other in terms of personality. O'Neal retains that boyish solemnity that has him sometimes slip into frozen, emotionless deadpan (which is why he was a perfect fit for Barry Lyndon), while MacGraw basically shudders and gasps for air when she is upset. They have fun together, even as the issue of the class divide hovers in the back of his mind. It is the basis of their first major argument, and curiously something that is never explicitly resolved. It's like a skip in the record, where they whistle and hold hands and skip forwards in their relationship. Well, they are still young of course, and still trading little jibes. Preppy becomes a playful term of endearment - but MacGraw is good enough that it was already one in the first place, merely hidden behind those layers of wit and edge. If O'Neal has his boyish immaturity then MacGraw has this persistent nagging from the script to keep up a persona. It always demands that she speak with a smirk on her face, two sentences away from another playfully snide remark. This considerably lessens any impact that comes from discovering her fatal disease. Everything in Love Story is inevitable, right down to the ending being clumsily stuck to the beginning as a way of providing a ominous ticking clock that frames the romance. Hiller has a difficult job - the story comes with the significant baggage of the title, the poster and being the basis of a best-selling romance novel. There's even an annual screening for Harvard freshman to deride, mock and jeer at all it's gooey, sickening sentimentalism. But if you want to look past that there is quiet the poetic arc within. Oliver is forever attached by name to his family's reputation, so it must be agonising to have to return to his father for monetary assistance. He barely even listens to his wife, who chastises him for feeling sorry for holding her back from a more rewarding lifetime. In a way she is also alleviating the audience's concerns too; I was a bit wary of the way she flings her dreams into the air for an early marriage, but what could be more truthful than the words from her own mouth? This is the tragic dilemma of these situations, where the dead die happy and the living are left to mourn what could have been, even if they had done everything right.

The film is kind of dated at this point, and everyone knows the plot whether they have seen it or not. However, watching it today is still an emotional experience. All relationships are different, and the quirky communication between the two main characters is often strange (albeit irrelevant, since you do see the love between them well enough). The side plot with the Barrett family adds to the character buy-in on Ryan O'Neal's performance, even if it's clear he can't act a lick. How did he get nominated for an Oscar here? McGraw isn't much better, in truth, but whatevs. The story is as timeless as "Romeo & Juliet", in essence: love torn apart way too soon. If you're not crying at the end, you're not human. As noted, the film could use more development to show the true love between the characters, especially in the beginning of the courtship. It is funny to see "Jack Woltz" in a different role here, and he's pretty good surprisingly. Overall, it's certainly worth seeing once just to say you've seen it, but after that, it can go back on the DVD shelf forever.

I remember when this movie came out when I was in high school in 1970. It was wildly popular. The theme from Love Story played on the radio 24/7. Author Eric Seagal appeared on all TV talk shows all the time, as did Ryan O'Neil and Ally McGraw. Every teenage girl in America copied Ally McGraw's hairdo:long, straight, and parted in the middle. Some blonde girls even dyed their hair brown. Teenage boys carried around the Love Story paperback in school and got all the chicks because they thought he was sensitive. But the truth is, this was an awful movie. The acting was bad and so was the script. Scene after scene was so melodramatic...poor Oliver working in a Christmas tree lot...oh, the indignity! Big deal..like a strong 24 year old man can't carry a Christmas tree to a lady's car? And when the doctor broke the news to Oliver...so unintentionally funny...she has no symptoms at all and he announces she will die soon because they took three blood tests and found...what? Doctors don't announce a patient will die unless all extended treatment is exhausted. He didn't even begin treatment or tell Oliver what was killing her. Later on, they mentioned white blood cells and a lack of platelets, but even a veterinarian would treat your dog before giving up on it. Then, she seemed her usual bright eyed and bushy tailed self n her deathbed before she just croaked. Even if she had lived, I don't see how this marriage could have survived more than a few years.Oliver was passive, and Jenny was aggressive, rude, and teased him constantly while saying "goddamn" to punctuate everything. Best comedy of 1970.

This review is going to be brief, because what can you say about a movie about a girl who died when she was twenty five? Only that it had meticulously-crafted cinematography, witty dialogue, honest performances from O'Neal and McGraw, a perfect score, and a clichéd story line that deserved none of that. But I enjoyed the movie nevertheless, probably because I'm around the same age as Jenny in movie's exposition, and I too enjoy Mozart, Bach...and even the Beatles. I'll also add (since IMDb asks that I add more lines to this review) that I'm a big fan of Ryan O'Neal's, so pretty much any movie he's in, I'll enjoy. I'll also add (perhaps unnecessarily) that he retweeted me today and it sort of made my life.