Romantically Challenged

So I finally watched the 1970 romantic drama Love Story with Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw the other day. I had never actively sought it out because I always assumed that it was one of those weepy "oh, their love is so magical that I'll never attain true happiness unless I can have a relationship just like theirs" movies.  I just knew that by watching it I would be destined for Harlequin romance novels and doily-covered furniture.

As it turns out, it was neither here nor there.  

Synopsis (spoiler alert!): Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, girl dies of some inexplicable disease that apparently doesn't have any physical side affects.

I'm sure that I was supposed to walk away with  some deeper understanding of the hardships facing two young lovers from different economic and social statuses during a time when blah blah blah...  I felt that the characters weren't fully developed and I found it hard to get emotionally invested.  So when Jennifer is stricken with some mystery illness that the writer apparently didn't think was necessary to identify, I found the whole thing to be a bit anti-climactic.  Maybe that wasn't a big deal in 1970, but in the age of TV medical dramas like House M.D. it's a little insulting to my self-proclaimed diagnostic prowess to deny me the opportunity to shout, "Lupus!  I bet it's lupus!"

Just like unbuttered toast, this movie wasn't entirely worthless, but it really didn't have much to offer me.  Maybe I'm just missing that romantic gene that we of the so-called "fairer sex" are supposedly born with. 

Oh and about the famous line, "Love means never having to say you're sorry."  I'm pretty sure that love means you should always say you're sorry, even if you know you're right.

So to all of the lovers of this film, I'm sorry.