Love Story (1970)

Two college students begin a relationship. He wants to get into Law School and she wants to study music. He is from a wealthy WASP family; her ancestors are Italian immigrants. They fall in love and get married. His father does not approve of the marriage and disinherits him. They postpone children until after finishing University. She gets sick and dies at 25.

While not exactly the best film I ever saw, this film does not deserve some of the criticism it received. In the first place, there is nothing maudlin about it. It is quite the opposite of maudlin, actually, as it is told in a modern and dry style, and the "sad" parts go by quite faster than one would expect. Secondly, people have disparaged the film's catchphrase (spoken at two points in the movie) as silly or worse; well, I will not go into deep philosophical discussions here, but I am simply not so sure it is actually as silly as all that. I am not sure I can pinpoint anything that is necessarily wrong with this film. But this is as far as my defense of it will go; I guess I just don't think it is intellectually and emotionally stimulating enough. There are, nevertheless, one or two things that apparently escaped critics. The most conspicuous subtext that no one, to my notice, has talked about, is the religious one. The protagonists are self-defined atheists, and the author, who was a son and a grandson of rabbis, seems to be saying that, even if your wedding ceremony is a "do-it-yourself" one, chances are that your death ceremony will not be of that kind. Also of notice is how mothers are completely insignificant to the story, whereas fathers are quite the opposite. Needless to say, should the protagonist couple have had a child, that pattern would repeat itself, which I suppose makes God -- that greatest of all father figures, and an invisible and omnipresent character in the film -- a terrible monster who slays or annihilates all women. As for the musical score, I must differ on that regard from many reviewers, because Lai is a true god among composers and this is a superb score. For what it's worth, here goes a piece about a woman who allegedly served as an inspiration for the female protagonist:

The Very Jewish Love Story Behind Erich Segal's 'Love Story'

Rating: 51