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39 out of 57 people found the following comment useful :- Best kind of tearjerker, 23 January 2005 Author: nikzfox from Australia
I wasn't even alive when this came out. I'd never even really heard of MacGraw nor O'Neal before (though they both looked vaguely familiar). The "Love Story" theme, I was definitely aware of though.I saw it for the first time in 2002, and bawled like hell. I saw it for the second time a few weeks ago (2005) and cried like a baby again. I instantly needed to get my DVD copy. My parents always say that they don't do movies (or music, for that matter) like they used to, and on this occasion, I had to agree.The movie's premise is simple: the typical boy meets girl love story, with the cliché rich boy, poor girl angle. But I think its simplicity is part of what's so great about it. I fell in love with Oliver and Jenny (and as corny as it may sound, I think their undying love for each other is ultimately what we're all searching for), and their tragedy became my devastation as well. It's generally your typical soppy chick flick (with the exception that the pair don't "live happily ever after"), but probably the best one of its kind. A story like this has become so banal today, 35 or so years later, but it was surely one of the first of its kind. It hits all the right emotional buttons, and although I'm not one to usually cry over films, this one certainly had me in tears.The two very attractive leads make a cute couple, and have good chemistry. O'Neal and MacGraw both turn in very solid performances, and I quite enjoyed the foul-mouthed MacGraw. Good writing, solid acting, great music (I could listen to the musical score all day), beautiful scenes. I love "Love Story". Hee! 10 out of 10 from me.
28 out of 38 people found the following comment useful :- "Love knows not its own depth, until the hour of separation.", 26 March 2000 Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
The sentimentality of "Love Story" ("What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who died?") is a hearty welcome retreat to the past... There is nothing to spoil love, trust, confidence or even the events... Jenny seems to die... She just escapes in loveliness...Jenny (Ali MacGraw) is half of a pretty young married students from a working class background... And Oliver (Ryan O'Neal) is from a very wealthy family... Both have the predictable problems with disapproving parents... Both struggle along through hard times, until Oliver obtains a fine job with his own merit... When Jenny tries to get pregnant, the doctor finds out that she has an incurable disease, and has a very short time to live...Ryan O'Neal plays well the intense sensitive rebel, giving a heart-breaking performance as the ultra-rich man's son who works to pay his way through law school when his father won't...Ali MacGraw is good and touching in her portrait of Jenny, the dying heroine, the poor baker's daughter studying classical music at Radcliffe, the smart young girl who gives up her plans to study in Europe in order to marry Oliver... She never missed a 'shred of her beauty' in her role...Ray Milland is the 60-year-old Oliver Barrett III... He is a strong, articulate, civilized millionaire from Boston who refuses to support his son in marrying a girl of such low social stature... He commands him instead to finish law school...John Harley is Phil, the father of Jenny... For him, "Father's love is something to cherish and respect."There is three sequences that I liked the most in the film:- Jenny and Oliver wonderful kissing scene... From this point on, both were entirely engrossed with each other, ready to risk anything for love...- Oliver's long day search looking for Jenny, until he sees her sitting, outside, on a stair... She forgot her keys... Jenny is comforted by Oliver who tries to apologize for his continual disputes... Jenny, all shaken, and with tears in her eyes and with an emotional voice stops him with words of deep affection: "Love means never having to say you're sorry."- Oliver, sitting alone and lost to the world, uncertain and perplexed, unable to understand Jenny's tragic fate... If Jenny could spend an hour in his mind, a minute in his heart, a second in his soul to discover what he really feels loving her... Why Jenny has to die so young? Why destiny is against us sometimes, smashing all our hopes and happiness? Why we feel so impotent in front of the will of God? Why can't we understand that we are 'blessed with Life,' and this is our great gift, our true treasure! Barrett's millions could never save Jenny!The Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran said once: "Love knows not its own depth, until the hour of separation." And let me say that 'nothing is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of Life.' They say: Time mends a broken heart and true love never ends... But if true love never ended then time wouldn't have to mend... So "Love Story" was followed by "Oliver's Story".Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw are splendid and beautifully matched... Arthur Hill's sincere direction commend the picture to a wide audience eager to a flood of tears... "Love Story" won 7 Academy Award nominations and Frances Lai - touching music - mixed by Bach, Mozart and Handel, won an Oscar, enriching the beauty of the film...An intense, tough-looking leading actor is seen: Tommy Lee Jones in his film debut...
18 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :- The modern tear-jerker., 16 May 2000 Author: brandon sites (bigpappa1@spinfinder.com) from usa
The modern tear-jerker for today's audiences. By today everybody knows the story for this film; boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy discovers girl has terminal illness.Even though I am a guy, I cried at the end of this (something very rare). Well done all around. Great acting and direction, with a brilliant music score and very well adapted from the book. Without a doubt in my mind, the greatest romance film ever made between the 1970's - the present. 10 out of 10.
17 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :- Not my kind of movie (?), 18 September 2006 Author: HemiPower from Sweden
I watched this movie by chance a couple of days ago. Me being a typical action-junkie, I would not intentionally have set out to watch this movie. Although I do enjoy the occasional romantic comedy, the word drama and the fact that the movie is 36 years old would have been enough for me to avoid this one. However, during one late night in front of the TV zapping, I stumbled over the beginning of this movie and got hooked.I loved the lead characters and above all found the dialogue brilliant. I am not very good at analyzing actor performances and other aspects of the movie but judging from the Academy Award and nominations and the 709 other people that has given this movie a 10/10 rating I would guess that I am not the only one to like the movie.Finally, I would not have lost any sleep if they had left out the part about "Love means never having to say you're sorry." Nice Feel-good/Break-your-heart movie.
23 out of 36 people found the following comment useful :- Timeless classic!, 2 July 2005 Author: Travis_Bickle01
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
51 out of 92 people found the following comment useful :- Love means never having to say you're sorry?, 20 July 2002 Author: jrs-8 from Chicago
What a bunch of baloney!! And it was a tagline that became as famous as the movie itself."Love Story" is a simple tale of young love defeated by death. It's not deep and the characters are not very appealing for a movie that depends on us loving them enough to hurt when they do. Ryan O'Neal's character is a spoiled, sniveling rich boy who falls in love with the opinionated, bitchy Ali MacGraw.I think the big problem with the film is that MacGraw's character is so abrasive it's difficult to muster up enough sympathy for the ladder part of the film when she lays dying in a hospital. Even as she lays dying she is still strong enough to spout her opinions and swear like a truck driver (well, like a truck driver in a 1970 PG rated movie).O'Neal comes off far better and we do have sympathy for him. It also helps that the beautiful musical score is played over every touching scene to help underscore our emotions.Watching "Love Story" today it is easy to see why it was a blockbuster back then. All the ingredients were there. It will move you. For some hard nosed viewers it may just move you on to the next channel.
11 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :- It's widely regarded as the ultimate romantic movie for a good reason., 22 November 2006 Author: Boba_Fett1138 from Groningen, The Netherlands
To be honest I was quite surprised as the low rating the movie gets her, since I've always been under the assumption that this movie is widely regarded to be the best and ultimate romantic movie ever made.The movie has all the ingredients a romantic movie needs, even the most formulaic ones. Two totally different boy and girl from different social levels fall in love with each other and of course not everyone in the environment (mainly the parents of course) are happy with this. Their love life has a couple of ups and downs in which they have to weight some choices for themselves against choices for their love together. Further more the movie also features an unavoidable dramatic twist in which one of the characters get seriously sick (Don't worry, this is not really a spoiler since this is mentioned right in the beginning of the movie already). In other words this movie has all of the formulaic sappy sounding ingredients to make this a sappy formulaic romantic movie. Yet "Love Story" is not. Why? It's hard to put your finger on why "Love Story" is so much more and so much better than your average love story but I guess that you can still answer this question, once you start analyzing the movie. Although the story and all of its elements are sappy and formulaic the movie itself doesn't try to be sappy or dramatic. The movie doesn't attempt to make you cry, by putting in over-the-top dramatic filmed moments with dramatic loud music and all that sort of stuff. Instead the movie chooses to take a realistic approach, no real surprise, considering that this is a '70's movie. The decade in which the most realistic (and best) movies were made. It has as a result that the movie never feels forced or overdone. It even makes the most formulaic and predictable elements of the movie work out, as strange and unbelievable as it might sound. You also have to keep in mind that at the time it was released, this movie was not formulaic at all. It was a fresh approach on the genre and inspired many later movies. In a way "Love Story" was bare raising and set the standards for many later romantic movies. The movie was nominated for 7 Oscar (of which it won 1 in the end) not just for no reason. The movie is obviously made on a low budget but it makes the end result look all the more creative. It's effectively directed by Arthur Hiller, who later went on directing lame comedies. A real waste of talent. The musical score by Francis Lai is a classic and the simple effective cinematography from Richard C. Kratina makes the movie feel all the more realistic. The movie made Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal big stars for the moment and they were both even nominated for an Oscar. To be frank I didn't even always liked their characters in the movie and I've never been to fond of Ryan O'Neal as an actor. In that regard I liked the supporting cast way better with John Marley, Ray Milland and Tommy Lee Jones in his very first (and very small) screen appearance. He looked so amazingly young, that he was hard to recognize.Although the movie takes some formulaic and obvious dramatic turns, the movie still always remain perfectly watchable, just not always emotionally involving enough. So I'm not to sure about it if this is a movie that can (still) make people cry. Nevertheless the movie still has its powerful moments, mostly due to the realism of it all. Everybody should be able to recognize the situations- and put themselves in the place of the characters of the movie. Everybody have been through similar events in their life at one point, in one way or another.Now days lots of people actually complain about the tag-line and famous quote from the movie; 'Love means never having to say you're sorry'. People find this a stupid and illogical line. To those people I would like to say; Wait until you've truly falling in love once. If you've REALLY been in love, you'll understand what is the meaning of that line. Love is about mutual respect and also accepting each others less pleasantries and still love each other for it. This also means never having to apologies to each other. Actually when I was in love once and the girl felt the same way about me (Yes amazing, I know. It seems like ages ago now), whenever one of us said 'sorry' for something the other always said; 'You never have to apologize for anything to me'. None of us had ever seen the movie or heard of its famous line before, so I think that really says something about the line and the truth that is in it.It in my opinion certainly is one the best and perhaps most influential romantic movie ever made. A must-see that deserves more objective respect and higher rating on here.8/10
11 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :- Effectively simple and straightforward tearjerker, 4 May 2006 Author: robb_772 from United States
A box office phenomenon at the time (this was one of those movie that people reportedly waited in line for hours to see), LOVE STORY has continued to be ridiculed by cynics and adored by romantics for decades. The secret to the film's ultimate effectiveness is in it's simplicity. Director Arthur Hiller wisely films Eric Segal's screenplay (an adaptation of his own best-selling novel) in a concise and straightforward manner, allowing audiences to become enamored with the characters and involved with their plight. The film even manages to make subtle commentary on class struggles, personal identity, and even the changing attitudes of religion, all of which while never appearing preachy or obvious under Hiller's unpretentious direction.I've never been a particularly big fan of the stoic Ali MacGraw, but the actress brings an undeniable spunk to her characterization here which helps undercut the potential sentimentality of the picture and lends the finale a greater emotional punch. The natural handsomeness and effortless charm of Ryan O'Neal is used to exceptional effect, and the supporting performances of Ray Milland and John Marley (as two very different types of fathers) are terrific. This is a film that never attempts to disguise it's own thematic manipulations, which may very be why it remains so effective. French composer Francis Lai's haunting original score further enhances the film, which is justifiably considered by many to be one of the all-time tearjerkers.
10 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :- Love like it ought to be, 15 October 1999 Author: emst
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.
11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :- A beautiful and emotional romance, 19 January 2006 Author: rebeljenn from Bath, England
'Love Story' is not your typical romance film, although it is a story about a boy and girl from different backgrounds who fall in love. Jenny is an intellectual music major with a passion to travel, and Oliver's parents are well-to-do, and he enjoys sports. It seems like an unlikely match, but the two of them hit it off and travel through the perils of relationships. It is a touching story, and the direction and coordination of some of the scenes is amazing. (Particularly the scene with Oliver sitting outside in the playing field and narrating the story is a classic moment in this film, and it is possibly one of the most memorable scenes in film history.) If you have never seen this film, you should. Anyone who has ever been in a relationship can relate to it, but if you are a sensitive person and cry in nearly every film you have ever been to, keep a full box of tissues handy.
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