movie review love story

I read Love Story one morning in about fourteen minutes flat, out of simple curiosity. I wanted to discover why five and a half million people had actually bought it. I wasn’t successful. I was so put off by Erich Segal’s writing style, in fact, that I hardly wanted to see the movie at all. Segal’s prose style is so revoltingly coy — sort of a cross between a parody of Hemingway and the instructions on a soup can — that his story is fatally infected.

The fact is, however, that the film of Love Story is infinitely better than the book. I think it has something to do with the quiet taste of Arthur Hiller , its director, who has put in all the things that Segal thought he was being clever to leave out. Things like color, character, personality, detail, and background. The interesting thing is that Hiller has saved the movie without substantially changing anything in the book. Both the screenplay and the novel were written at the same time, I understand, and if you’ve read the book, you’ve essentially read the screenplay. Nothing much is changed except the last meeting between Oliver and his father; Hiller felt the movie should end with the boy alone, and he was right. Otherwise, he’s used Segal’s situations and dialogue throughout.

But the Segal characters, on paper, were so devoid of any personality that they might actually have been transparent. Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal , who play the lovers on film, bring them to life in a way the novel didn’t even attempt. They do it simply by being there, and having personalities.

The story by now is so well-known that there’s no point in summarizing it for you. I would like to consider, however, the implications of “Love Story” as a three-, four-or five-handkerchief movie, a movie that wants viewers to cry at the end. Is this an unworthy purpose? Does the movie become unworthy, as Newsweek thought it did, simply because it has been mechanically contrived to tell us a beautiful, tragic tale? I don’t think so. There’s nothing contemptible about being moved to joy by a musical, to terror by a thriller, to excitement by a Western. Why shouldn’t we get a little misty during a story about young lovers separated by death?

Hiller earns our emotional response because of the way he’s directed the movie. The Segal book was so patently contrived to force those tears, and moved toward that object with such humorless determination, that it must have actually disgusted a lot of readers. The movie is mostly about life, however, and not death. And because Hiller makes the lovers into individuals, of course we’re moved by the film’s conclusion. Why not?

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Love Story Ending Explained: What Love Really Means

When people think of open-air ice skating in New York City, well, they probably conjure up the festive Christmas-y confines of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Unless they're old. Baby Boomer old. For members of the generation that protested the Vietnam War before turning into conservative zombies who treat Fox News as an informational IV drip, there is first and foremost the image of the late Ryan O'Neal's Oliver Barrett IV gazing forlornly at the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park as Francis Lai's brilliantly overwrought main theme jerks tears from our ducts with a vicious intensity worthy of Pinhead.

Most Boomers won't get that reference. And for those born as early as the Reagan era who are generally incurious about movies, you probably haven't watched Arthur Hiller's "Love Story." It is a film of its time, but, oh, what a film it was, at least commercially. Based on Erich Segal's bestselling weeper of a novel about a rich boy-poor girl romance that ends tragically, the movie was a New Hollywood anomaly that can charitably be compared to a ruthlessly sentimental mugging like King Vidor's "Stella Dallas." Greenlit by hedonistic executive Robert Evans at the moment he was saving Paramount Pictures from financial ruin, it stood out from the heightened style of genre flicks like Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" or Peter Yates' "Bullitt" by being unabashedly what it was meant to be.

There's no subversion at work when a grief-stricken Oliver leaves the hospital room of a freshly expired Jenny Cavilleri (Ali MacGraw), verbally accosts his status-obsessed father (Ray Milland) and strides purposely to the rink where his wife once watched him skate. It's a skull-shattering cudgel of a finale, and it was effective enough to make "Love Story" the top grossing movie of 1970. Would you like to know more? There's precious little meat on this bone, but here goes nothing!

What you need to remember about the plot of Love Story

Oliver is the bright, beautiful heir of an old-money East Coast family. He attends Harvard College and is a standout player for the school's hockey team. He becomes smitten with Jenny (Ali MacGraw), the daughter of a blue-collar baker (John Marley). He's destined for Harvard law school, while she is eager to put her Radcliffe College classical music degree to use as a teacher. Oliver is a glowing exemplar of New England privilege, but he's sensitive. He leads with his heart, which infuriates his parents who want him to marry into more money. When Oliver announces he intends to wed Jenny, his family cuts him off financially.

Look, the movie works. We're as smitten with these kids as they are with each other, and as we watch them struggle to make ends meet, we really want to do bad things to Ray Milland. Amazingly, they pull through, with Oliver landing a high-paying gig at a corporate law firm in New York City. Alas, just when it appears they've weathered the worst, despite Oliver's family's cruelly punitive efforts, Jenny is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

The rest of the film is a predetermined wallow, but O'Neal and MacGraw play their sad-sack parts with emotive zeal. Our abhorrence of Milland goes nuclear when he unwittingly agrees to pay for Jenny's cancer treatment because Oliver lies to him about having knocked up another woman (something the patriarch clearly did during his backsliding days), but we know this is going south because Oliver's kiss-off line to his father is the poster's freaking tagline.

What happened at the end of Love Story

Jenny absolves Oliver of any guilt he might feel about contributing to their predicament before she dies. He meant more to her than her love of music (which diminishes her tremendously as a character, but, hey, we're here for Oliver's heartbreak, not her misfortune). Milland has a change of heart once he learns of Jenny's illness, and rushes (too late) to her bedside. Oliver confronts his father outside of the hospital. When Milland tells him he's sorry, the furious Oliver unleashes a full-scale nuclear strike of despondence at his pops, (which happens to be a passed-along piece of wisdom from Jenny).

"Love? Love means never having to say you're sorry."

Cue Francis Lai and the audience's waterworks .

What the end of Love Story means

Love means never having to say you're sorry? You sure about that?

It's a terrific quip, and it sure beats the hell out of Ray Milland (he hadn't been this distraught since hallucinating a bat killing a mouse on the business end of a long drunk in Billy Wilder's "The Lost Weekend"), but this sentiment goes sour when you mull it over for all of a nanosecond. Let's say you get into a heated argument, and you call your spouse's mother "a great big poopyhead." Let's take this a step further and say the matriarch in question is not "a great big poopyhead," but is, in fact, a loving woman who just happens to care for her daughter's future, and she's just a tad miffed that you've been squandering the kids' college fund at an off-track betting establishment (without doing the bare minimum of research on owners, breeders and jockeys, which any degenerate gambler will tell you is just throwing your money away).

I believe an apology is warranted at this point in time. Furthermore, I think Milland, within a minute of his son storming his way down 5th Avenue, came to his senses and decided Oliver's utterance was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard in his life (while still feeling not altogether great about Jenny having kicked the bucket).

What the cast and crew of Love Story said about the ending

Ali MacGraw is loudly on record as disapproving of the film's valedictory. As she told Town & Country in 2016 :

"That moment absolutely shows that I didn't know anything about acting; any more seasoned actress would have said, 'What? This is rubbish.' But there I was, crying away in Boston. I think it's the opposite. If you've done something frightful to someone you love, you don't just say you're sorry; you change your behavior."

For his part, O'Neal didn't get the line upon speaking it, and as late as 2021 , wasn't entirely sure what it meant. "Neither of us knew at the time. But over the years, we have come up with answers that ... I don't know. I had to say 'I'm sorry' a lot in my life, that's all I know!"

What the end of Love Story meant for the franchise

You can't have a meaningful discussion about ill-advised sequels without bringing up 1978's "Oliver's Story." Based on the equally ill-advised novel by Erich Segal, the film opens with Oliver hanging out at Jenny's burial , waiting bitterly for her coffin to be lowered into the earth. Francis Lai's theme kicks up once more, and the moviegoers that bothered to show up for this late-breaking sequel (there weren't many of them judging from the film's poor box-office performance) presumably broke into tears.

The rest of the 91-minute movie is a clinic in disastrous narrative decisions. Oliver mopes until he falls in love with the vapid heiress (a shame-faced Candice Bergen) of the Bonwit Teller department store fortune. The entire movie is about Oliver making peace with being a child of privilege, and learning to kind of love it. At this point, the "Love Story" franchise was as dead as Jenny, and no one was sorry about it.

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Common Sense Media Review

Mega-hit of the 1970s isn't as powerful today.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that some of the dialogue is peppered with mild expletives. Although Jennifer supports Oliver in law school, she promptly gives up her musical aspirations to be a housewife as soon as he finds a job.

Why Age 13+?

Jennifer's dialogue is peppered with mild expletives.

A love scene.

Any Positive Content?

Although Jennifer supports Oliver in law school, she promptly gives up her music

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Although Jennifer supports Oliver in law school, she promptly gives up her musical aspirations to be a housewife as soon as he finds a job. Modern audiences may find the gender roles out of sync with the times.

Parents need to know that some of the dialogue is peppered with mild expletives. Although Jennifer supports Oliver in law school, she promptly gives up her musical aspirations to be a housewife as soon as he finds a job. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (2)
• Kids say (3)

Based on 2 parent reviews

A bit of an empty love story...

What's the story.

Radcliffe music major Jennifer Cavilleri (Ali McGraw) and Harvard man Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O'Neal) fall in love despite the differences in their backgrounds. Oliver is from an affluent WASP family while Jennifer grew up in her father's bakery in Rhode Island. Oliver is destined for Harvard Law School, while Jennifer's planning to study piano in Paris, but all of that changes when they announce their engagement. Unwilling to give in to his father's demand that they postpone their marriage, Oliver is cut off without a penny. Jennifer gives up music and takes a job as a teacher to support him while he's in law school. Her investment pays off when he graduates with honors and finds a well-paying job in New York. When Jennifer tries unsuccessfully to get pregnant, she's discovered to be terminally ill. She and Oliver spend their last days savoring every moment together.

Is It Any Good?

Although this corny reworking of Romeo and Juliet is almost saved by Ryan O'Neal's quietly smoldering charm, young viewers may be quick to hit the eject button. Jennifer's constant putdowns and continual sarcasm are so irritating that they undermine the plausibility of Oliver's love for her. Jennifer's illness and death is designed to evoke strong emotions, but viewers who can't get past her abrasive personality may have trouble summoning sympathy. However, sensitive teens may share in Oliver's intense feelings of loss and sadness.

Released in 1970, LOVE STORY was adapted from Erich Segal's best-selling novel and was equally popular onscreen. But the highly romanticized handling of Jennifer's death makes it unlikely to appeal to viewers today. Instead, audiences may cringe when they hear the famous line, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." These words were ubiquitous when this tearjerker was released, but their message hasn't aged particularly well.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how death and dying are portrayed in films. Was Jennifer's death portrayed realistically? Families who have experienced the dying and death of family member might compare that to the movie. Why do movie makers make death and dying either seem idyllic, as in this case, or gruesome, as in horror movies? Would you like to see movies that portray death realistically? Why or why not?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 16, 1970
• On DVD or streaming : April 24, 2001
• Cast : Ali MacGraw , Ryan O'Neal , Ray Milland
• Director : Arthur Hiller
• Studio : Paramount Pictures
• Genre : Romance
• Topics : Book Characters
• Run time : 100 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : language and a love scene
• Last updated : June 4, 2024

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Summary A young couple who cross social barriers, marry and ultimately face the greatest crisis of all. (Paramount Pictures)

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Love Story Reviews

Some love stories just don't hold up well

Full Review | Feb 28, 2024

The production values here are not very strong as the imagery is bland and unmemorable, the costumes don’t tell you anything about the characters and the production designers seemingly forgot what it was like to be a university student.

Full Review | Feb 9, 2023

It wears its heart on its sleeve and makes no apologies (remember what love means ...), and more than anything that is what audiences responded to then and continue to respond to today.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 8, 2021

The impact of Love Story cannot be overstated. Yet despite its touchstone status, it's not a particularly good film.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 12, 2021

Love Story certainly isn't the first or the last romantic drama that will grace the big screen but it has that intangible 'it' quality that makes it one of the best.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 5, 2021

A genuinely moving love story with vivid characters in a singularly cinematic romance.

Full Review | Original Score: 10/10 | Aug 30, 2020

Love Story is a three-handkerchief movie if you are hard boiled. Otherwise it rates six hankies.

Full Review | Apr 5, 2019

Ryan O'Neal gives the character of the neon scion a warmth and vulnerability entirely missing from the bestseller.

Full Review | Feb 8, 2018

MacGraw never could act her way out of a paper bag, but she dies very prettily, cuing Oscar winning violins and O'Neal's Big Scene.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 30, 2012

If you're going to make a serious tearjerker, somebody's got to die. It's in the handbook of romantic platitudes.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Jan 24, 2012

Mega-hit of the 1970s is a real cringer today.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 1, 2011

Guilty pleasure par excellence: How did this poorly-acted schmaltzy romantic melodrama ever get Best Picture Oscar nomination? Arthur Hiller's direction is inept, bringing out the novel's weaknesses instead of strengths.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Sep 23, 2008

By the time O'Neal gets around to intoning the famous tag line, you'll be so sick of hearing Francis Lai's love theme that you'll want to strangle the projectionist.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 19, 2007

Love Story is an excellent film.

Full Review | Dec 19, 2007

Cornball classic weeper is at least true to its book basis.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 10, 2006

Dated before it was made.

Full Review | Feb 9, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 10, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 22, 2005

The only really depressing thing about Love Story is the thought of all of the terrible imitations that will inevitably follow it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 9, 2005

Hiller earns our emotional response because of the way he's directed the movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 23, 2004