Love Story

I had been avoiding watching 'Love Story' because I thought it would be another one of those corny sugarcoated love story with excessive melodrama. After hearing a friend's recommendation, I decided to give it a chance and I was pleasantly surprised. It's a simple film in terms of everything: execution, performances, background score, direction, dialogues...The writing is incredibly great as the dialogues are creatively and amusingly witty. The movie stays focused on Jennifer's and Oliver's relationship that is portrayed with the utmost simplicity. A movie like 'Love Story' could have easily gone wrong but kudos to director Hiller for his fine execution and for pulling all the ingredients together so effectively with the help of whimsical cinematography, impressive soundtrack and fine actors. The chemistry between O'Neal and McGraw sizzles on screen. Both actors complement each other brilliantly and convincingly portray the 'opposites that attract'. Hiller has done a commendable job by bringing these two actors together and a strong rapport with them to enhance their work. Of the supporting cast John Marley and Ray Milland stand out by their strong presence. Overall, I liked the film a lot for its subtlety, ambiguity and simplicity that makes it feel more genuine. Clearly it stood the test of time as there are hardly any more movies being made these days that could reach anywhere near the level of this classic.

Superb acting, wonderful stars, a great story, very funny jokes and very real tears. If you're looking for a romantic yet soppy movie, this is the the best deal. Love Story is the finest in it's kind.

Very pleasant surprised by this wonderful and brilliantly acted "Love Story". Owkay, the title captures everything of the movie. You instantly know what it is about. But that doesn't bother. This movie is almost twice my age and before I started watching this movie, I wasn't sure if I would like it. After all, I want a movie to be recognizable (at least with a movie about a love story, I'm not talking about movies in general. You can't expect a movie like "The Godfather" to be recognizable) and the acting has to be real. With certain movies from a couple of decennia ago, I sometimes have the feeling the acting isn't real, you're all the time aware of the fact that they are acting, and I think a movie can't have that.

The acting here was amazing. Ali MacGraw as well as Ryan O'Neal were both excellent in their roles as Jenny and Oliver. I thought both fathers were quite good as well, specially Jenny's father Phil, performed by John Marley, who surely deserved his Academy Award Nomination. The music was also terrific in this movie. I think it's, beside the acting, one of the most important points to make this movie timeless.

Unfortunately, this movie became the only success of the leading actors. It could have been the beginning of a brilliant acting career, but "Love Story" became the highlight of their career. To conclude I can only repeat that "Love Story" is a brilliant and timeless romantic classic!

Watch this movie! 9/10

I had never seen Love Story nor read the book. However, I vividly remember its popularity when I was a child. Now that I'm "all grown up" I cannot believe that 1970 America got mesmerized by such schmaltz.

For Love Story to garner a Best Picture nomination must mean that 1970 was a weak year for films. Others have panned O'Neal and McGraw's acting. I thought it was adequate... nothing to do backflips over, but adequate...certainly NOT Oscar winning. I've always liked Ryan O'Neal's acting. Someone else should have played Jenny

I can take the romance, the young love, grievous feelings. I've been there but what's most irksome about this film are the gaps in the story line. I had NO IDEA what the hell Jenny was dying from. Out of nowhere Oliver graduates from law school... did we ever see him crack a book. The screenplay is lacking in my opinion. This is certainly not the greatest love story ever told... at least not on film anyway.

Still, it's enjoyable and worth seeing if nothing else than to see Tommy Lee Jones in an early role and also for the beautiful winter scenery.

Rating: 7/10 or **1/2

I somehow saw this in the theater during it's initial release as it must have been the allure of Ali McGraw and I've seen it probably three times since over the years to make sure I didn't miss something about this film but I don't think I did. How could this small film have been nominated for eight Academy Awards? It was nominated for most of the biggest awards in Best Picture, Best Director for Arthur Hiller, Best Actor in Ryan O'Neal, Best Actress for Ali McGraw, Best Supporting Actor for John Marley and Best Screenplay for author Eric Segal as well as Best Score and Best song for Francis Lai. Well, Lai was a deserved nomination and in fact won those two Oscars but the rest of the nominations were a cinematic joke. The novella story by Segal never had enough material to be a full length feature film. He could have at least added a mindless car chase or a flying saucer scene to the screenplay to give the film some depth. This was McGraw's only third film and her follow up role in The Getaway with husband Steve McQueen was a far better performance. After that her career stalled and she never made of film of note again. Ryan O'Neal had made a couple of minor films before and was most noted for his television roles and he like McGraw turned in a stiff, wooden performance here and there was no on screen chemistry between them. John Marley and Ray Milland were good in supporting roles. Director Arthur Hiller had made the leap from television to feature films with a string of mediocre movies until moderate success with the Out of Towners before Love Story and after would see more moderate success in comedies in The Hospital, The In-Laws and Silver Streak but any success he ever had were in comedies. This as a serious film tries to be so serious it goes overboard. I would give this a 6.0 for good music and set direction and for sentimental reasons for once having had a teen aged crush on Ali McGraw.