it's a love story, baby just say yes

* I apologize for the title in advance, I just couldn't resist

Pathetically, the first time I saw this film I said, "this so ripped off A Walk to Remember." Never mind that this movie came out say thirty years before before the Nicholas Sparks film, but I was eleven and ignorant.

Love Story is a really simple story -- rich boy meets girl from the wrong side of the tracks, boy falls for girl, boy marries girl, girl dies from an incurable disease, boy learns a valuable life lesson about love from said death. The lesson he learns, the oft-repeated "love means never having to say you're sorry," is indeed very lovely but believe me is entirely BS. When you're actually in love, you find that love means having to say you're sorry for everything that you do. (Going to the movies without letting your beau know about it? Of course you were trying to cheat on him! Apologize immediately, ladies!)

The movie has really great preppy collegiate fashion, and a beautiful musical score that always makes me want to cry (and was unexplainably used in an Oreos commerial like a year ago). I really love Ryan O'Neal in this movie, but to be honest I didn't really dig Ali MacGraw the first few times I saw her in it. I found her so annoying and pompous that I really didn't care that she was dying. I was only sad because my poor Ryan looked heartbroken crying over his fake wife's death. Eventually I got over and grew to like Ali's character, because I figured that if I had such stellar clothing and was considered a 'smart kid' at Harvard, I would be kind of stuck up too.

What I like about Love Story (apart from Ryan O'Neal) is that every character has a good heart. After the two lovers (O'Neal and Ali MacGraw) looked past his snobby friends and her snobby glasses, they find that they can really care for one another. Even Oliver's dad, who is openly a d-bag about his son's relationship with a 'poor Catholic Italian,' could arguably only acted so out of love for his son.

Hopefully if you haven't already seen Love Story you can check it out soon -- despite any corniness, its a really cute touching film. Also, to anyone who was worried that I gave away a major spoiler by saying Ali MacGraw dies, I really didn't -- the first line in the movie is 'What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach, the Beatles... and me?' So smart are they at the tearjerkers, they get you right from the get-go.