Love Story

In director Arthur Hiller's hit tearjerker -- based on Erich Segal's novella -- Ryan O'Neal plays Oliver Barrett IV, a comfortably off Harvard pre-law student who falls in love with Radcliffe music student Jenny Cavilleri (Ali MacGraw), a freewheeling, delightfully profane product of a blue-collar ...more

Some viewers dismiss Love Story as a cynical, manipulative tearjerker, mentioning "MacGraw's Disease," an incurable ailment which leaves its victims brave, sunny, and radiant. But these easy criticisms ignore why the film works so beautifully in the first place: it presents a pair of interesting, fully realized characters and makes us fall in love along with them. Ali MacGraw's portrayal of Jenny Cavilleri is so exuberant yet believable (she talks like a sailor) that she is immensely appealing, ...more