Movie Review: Love Story

The pretentiously-named Love Story was the highest grossing film of 1970. It garnered seven Oscar nominations and five Golden Globe nominations. It lost the Best Picture Oscar to Patton, but won the Best Drama Golden Globe.[1] It is listed as the ninth best romantic film by the American Film Institute in their 100 Years…100 Passions list.[2] It is probably best known for the last line of the film, "Love means never having to say you're sorry", which also earned a spot in an AFI list.[3] The lead actor in Love Story, Ryan O'Neal (who later appears in Bones [4] as Temperance Brennan's father) later starred in the screwball comedy, What's Up Doc?, where he mocks that same line.

My verdict: I tell you all this because I was shocked at how unlikeable this movie was. I'm glad it lost the Best Picture to Oscar. Love Story winning over Patton would've been a tragedy on the scale of the Annie Hall win over Star Wars in 1978. The movie just sort of rambles.[5] I honestly couldn't tell you what the plot was—just that it was about Oliver's inability to live his own life. Oliver is rebellious through the whole movie, but you don't really see anything wrong with his father until about halfway through, when Oliver and Jenny decide to get married. At that point Oliver stops living his life the way his father doesn't want him to and starts living it the way Jenny wants him to. The wedding itself was a joke. I hope no one thought that was romantic. The ending of the movie was sad [6], but also a bit fatalistic. Certainly not the tearjerker I'd been lead to believe it would be—especially given the heavy use of profanity, which sullied the story. The only redeeming feature of this movie was the soundtrack, which was the only Oscar win Love Story managed to acrue.

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Notes:

[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love Story (1970 film).

[2] See http://www.afi.com/100years/passions.aspx.

[3] It appears at spot 13 on the 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes list (see http://www.afi.com/100Years/quotes.aspx).

[4] Read my reviews of Bones, season 6.0 (here) and 6.5 (here).

[5] This may be, in part, due to the inordinate amount of time Oliver spends racing around in his car. Or perhaps that's a metaphor…

[6] This movie must've been the inspiration for the Mormon novella Charlie.

Image attributions:

Radcliff College is by Lumidek, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radcliffe-winter.jpg.