Rating: PG
Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 04/24/2001
Flags: Adult Situations, Questionable for Children, Adult Language, Suitable for Teens
Distributor/Studio: Paramount
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 Italian-American family.
Oliver's father (
Ray Milland) heartily disapproves of the subsequent marriage and cuts off his son's allowance. Despite financial travails (the pampered
Oliver actually has to go to work!), the couple is blissfully happy....until
Jenny is diagnosed as having an unnamed disease that consigns her to an early death. The movie's tagline "Love means never having to say you're sorry" became an iconic American catchphrase, the film's theme a number one hit. One of the early products of
Paramount guru
Robert Evans,
Love Story grossed more money than any
Paramount production before it. This enormously successful film inspired a 1978 sequel,
Oliver's Story.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide