I know. I watched it. But hear me out. It fits into the scheme of 1970's films I've been fascinated with lately. Specifically those set in NYC. We all know the plot. Jenny (Ali MacGraw) and Oliver (Ryan O'Neal) fall in love in Cambridge while attending Radcliffe and Harvard despite opposing class lines. They get married and struggle and then Jenny dies from a mysterious (leukemia?) illness. Everyone cries and the film makes $100 million at the box-office. Seriously. That's a hell of a lot of dough for even now.
What I find fascinating about the film are the performances. Ryan and Ali are pretty great in it. Sure, Jenny is kind of annoying and Oliver is so against the grain of the period as a Harvard Law School graduate. But in the end they kind of work it. It resulted in seven Oscar nominations and one win (for the score by Francis Lai).
The plot is bare-bones. Inexplicably, Jenny has no female friends and both of their familys have cardboard cutout father figures. But the cast makes it work. Ray Milland is excellent as Oliver's father even though he has maybe twelve lines. But the real standout is John Marley as Jenny's father. He too has minimal dialogue, but manages to flesh out the real feelings and emotions of what a New England father from that time period may feel.
Unfortunately, Love Story left me not crying tears, but crying for answers. What happened to Jenny's mom? Why is Oliver rebelling against his family now and not earlier when he was facing the draft and the Vietnam War? In the end it makes the lead characters seem shallow and self-serving instead of sympathetic. What should I expect though? It's a cry-jerker. It was meant to be manipulative for an obviously large audience of the population that wanted to escape from the turbulent times they were living in.
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