Somewhere around the time the United States was illegally invading Cambodia, and soldiers were shooting unarmed students in the head at Kent State, two people fell in love. Not ordinary people, mind you, but Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw. Beautiful, privileged, strapping young people, who also had the good fortune of having the combined acting talent of Tanya Roberts on her worst day. You know, a Sheena, Queen of the Jungle kind of day. Shiny, striking people roaming the grounds of Harvard and Radcliffe, all in service of a romance so bereft of believability, it’s not at all surprising it took home over $106 million at the box office back when tickets were two bits. And that included popcorn, a large soda, and a reasonably sized bucket of Dots.
If you can imagine plastic and cardboard having a meet-cute, you can imagine Love Story. A movie where holding hands in the park and exchanging cringe-worthy banter constitutes great passion and defiance, especially if you have the nerve to turn down daddy’s money in favor of scraping by and putting yourself through law school, by God. Which no one does, but like Hemingway said, isn’t it pretty to think so? In sum, the decade’s mindless answer to impending doom and cynicism. That is, if you readily accept that a 25-year-old’s death is the flip side of futility. In Jenny’s case, at least it shuts her up.
MacGraw (playing Jenny), is exactly what the times ordered: working class, socially aware, sweet, and yes, the kind of woman decidedly not building bombs in basements. Instead, she’s teaching disadvantaged kids at a summer camp. She loves piano, the great composers, and has a classic quote at the ready for just about any occasion. Hell, even her dad is salt of the earth. Built his own business with blood, sweat, and tears, all without his dearly departed saint of a wife. Yes, he’s that kind of character. He even supports Jenny’s desire to marry Oliver (O’Neal) without the expected Catholic pomp and ceremony. As played by John Marley (Jack Woltz in The Godfather), he’s the only bright light in this entire mess, and his one scene was enough to secure one of the film’s astounding seven Oscar nominations. I’m not sure it’s deserved, but when the furniture is so worn and ugly, even halfway decent drapes can garner some attention.
It’s a cinematic trope as old as time that if you are white and rich, you hate your father. And Oliver is no exception. Pushed and bullied with expectations and demands, Oliver resents having to attend the very college where his grandfather donated a building, and the place where daddy dear channeled Oliver Wendell Holmes on a daily basis. And it doesn’t help that your father is Ray Milland. Still, here you are. Advantages aplenty, and yet, the constant sorrow. The pain. The loneliness. All of which makes you especially vulnerable to attack from the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, only a year out from Liza Minnelli’s near invention of the form in The Sterile Cuckoo. And while Jenny is not nearly as crazy, nor as grating, she’s at worst a second cousin of the type. Grabs your attention with an insult, secures an invitation to coffee with the sheer power of quirk, and lands a marriage proposal by insisting that you can’t possibly live without her.
Clearly, though, Oliver can. Everyone can. But he hates his mansions, expensive cars, and perfectly coiffed mane, so he’s got to go slumming to become a better man. And that’s the essential goal of the MPDG. You are stuffy, boring, and practically inert, and she is not. Her tornado of a soul exists solely to make you realize that while the world works and has responsibilities, you’re better off acting goofy. If only Nixon and Kissinger could have rolled around in the snow once in a while, maybe we could have had peace in our time. It’s a most insidious message for any decade, but especially one brimming with inflation, unemployment, and unending violence. Love does not conquer all. And it certainly doesn’t make for good cinema. Maybe that’s why the script had to end in a hospital. We’re sure as shit not going to sit still for these people walking into the sunset.
Now about that death. It’s so legendary it even helped coin the phrase Ali MacGraw Disease. You know the type: where doctors speak vaguely about blood cells and the like, all without having to enter the dreaded “c-word” into the ether. Where victims get more beautiful the closer they are to the end, and the ravages of illness not once cause even the slightest pain, let alone hair or weight loss. No one cries out in agony, or shits themselves, or even breaks a sweat. And, in a truly inexplicable turn, the doctor conspires with Oliver himself to keep Jenny from knowing her own condition. She’s so tender and slight, well, it’s best if she rots away in total ignorance. Hey, it’s 1970. Women couldn’t open their own bank accounts, so I guess it’s conceivable that private, confidential medical records could be known by all except the actual patient. And when Jenny finally learns the truth, she shrugs with such indifference, one wonders if she misinterpreted “terminal cancer” as “a slight pain in the abdomen that clears up after a bubble bath.”
But that’s the rub, you see. Jenny is perfect. A saint. Too pure for this world. She has to die so she’ll never be corrupted, and Oliver can use his law degree to spread pro bono love across Appalachia or something. Naturally, she accepts the end of life like it’s akin to losing a dinner reservation. No fear. No resistance. Dying fifty years prematurely, sure, but as long as everyone in my life learns a lesson, it’ll have been worth it. A woman so incredibly selfless that having Oliver hug his father is a thousand-fold more important than staying alive. No, we never really learned anything about Jenny in the course of the film, and no, she never acquired three-dimensionality, but she was thin. And attractive. And willing to watch hockey. Maybe that’s enough. It sure as hell was for the Academy.
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