Love Story

Ryan O'Neal ("Oliver") is the son of a wealthy family who falls in love with "Jenny"(Ali McGraw) - a working class girl of whom his father (Ray Milland) does not approve. When the couple decide they are serious, his relationship with his father breaks down. He is studying law, qualifies third in his class at Harvard, gets a decent job and their now married life together looks set fair - until, that is, they struggle to conceive a child. A visit to the doctor presents their idyllic lifestyle with a massive shock and the two, at just twenty four years of age, must come to terms with a looming tragedy. There is quite a bit of engaging, first love, chemistry between these actors, and the script is peppered with some gentle humour as their lively romance blossoms in front of us. The production is adequate, all it needs to be in a performance driven film like this but the nature of the ending served little purpose and felt really quite unnecessarily unfulfilling and downbeat. It is a good film, but I suspect that Francis Lai's theme tune will long outlive the memory of anything we see on screen.

Well acted tear-jerker has some nice scenes and dialogue between Ryan O'Neil and Ali MacGraw, and thankfully not overly schmaltzy. Today this sort of thing would be on Lifetime but back in 70 was a box office hit. Not sure it's something I'll watch again anytime soon but decent for a romance-drama. **3.5/5**