Love Story Movie (1970) — Review

Recently, I watched the movie Love Story (1970) starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal. The film follows two Harvard students, one a music major and the other a law major. What starts as a teasing friendship ends with the two falling in love. Jennifer, the female protagonist, is more of a commoner, while Oliver, the male protagonist, is very rich. The movie is filled with romance, drama, and tragedy. However, there are a few things in the film that I didn’t quite like.

Begining Spoilers

Firstly, within a few seconds, the entire movie is spoiled. It begins with Oliver sitting on a bench reminiscing his past lover who has died, Jennifer. The scene begins with him saying that she loved Bach, Mozart, The Beatles, and him. Immediately after this scene, we meet Jennifer, who is most definitely the girl that he loves and looks to be around 25 years old, as he mentioned in the first scene when describing Jennifer. I mean the movie is called Love Story, so it’s obvious that the first woman we see with a substantial amount of dialogue is the woman he will fall in love with and, in this case leaves him. They fall in love fairly quickly upon their first meeting. Even though Jennifer does not admit to being in love with Oliver, we can tell that she is and Oliver feels the same. If you somehow didn’t realize that Jennifer would die, another teaser is spoiled when she mentions that she loves Bach, Mozart, The Beatles, and him, all in that order, as mentioned previously. All to say, the dialogue in the first scene should’ve been taken out or the scene entirely. Though Oliver has a very nice voice, his dialogue spoiled everything.

Bad Editing

Secondly, the editing in some scenes felt awkward in speed. The scenes were cut weirdly, that they either felt too rushed or too slow. A display would end quite abruptly, which was confusing. It caused the film to run at a faster pace than I would have liked. Sometimes they were too slow making it seem as though the directors just wanted the movie to be longer by prolonging a scene that should have been cut sooner. The movie wasn’t very long, to begin with, so the screen time was not used effectively. I would have liked to have seen more finished scenes and others better edited.

Rushed Love Story

Also, the love story between Oliver and Jennifer felt a bit rushed. It was as if we truly never got enough time to get to know the characters better. We just got some random montages of them together and occasionally, a conflict would arise between Oliver and his father. But, what about Jennifer and her family? I would have liked more background on Jennifer. I also wish there were more conflicts in their relationship so, that it would’ve been more realistic. I felt like the two protagonists needed more depth. Their love story seemed a bit too perfect before she passes. I love both of these characters, but more time was needed to see their relationship begin and fall and then come back up again. The line that came up very often was

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

Very romantic, but it just seems a bit untrue. You should apologize to a person you have wronged. However, I guess she knew that he loved her therefore, his love was equivalent to an apology. Sweet, but a tad confusing.

Final Thoughts

To end, the movie was very sad and romantic, but a few details made the rating of the movie for me to decrease. I liked the film nonetheless, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good romance.