Love Story

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” There’s a real polarity to this line, delivered as it is first by Ali McGraw replete with squirted on tears and then by Ryan O’Neal in all his arborified glory. The words really make no sense, and yet there’s something compelling about them that almost hints at profundity. Such a duality hangs over the 1970 Erich Segal tearjerker as a whole. In many ways, it’s a film firmly entrenched in its era. The appalling 70’s fashions and O’Neal’s ghastly Greg Brady hair make you wish they’d jump in a van and go and investigate grave robbings in Texas. But in other ways the film feels timeless. It has simplicity, and single-mindedness; a refusal to offer a silver lining that characterises a large majority of 70’s films. And the thing that keeps me returning to it again and again, first on television, then on VHS, and now on DVD: it’s union of that perfect couple, love and death. From the beginning of storytelling, the best love stories have been the ones that send the lovers to their graves. Ovid knew it with Pyramus and Thisbe; Shakespeare knew it with Romeo and Juliet; Cameron knew it with Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor in Terminator 1. Segal’s also smart enough to give us the ending straight up. Yes Ali McGraw cannot act her way out of a paper bag. But the movie works because we know from the very outset that she is going to die. And this fact overshadows the entire narrative, giving every limp line of dialogue (“You’re a preppie millionaire, I’m a social zero”) a sense of importance, giving every cheesy montage (snow angels you have to be fricking kidding me) a sense of heart rending irony. We may criticise, but we are not made of stone. Death is what makes their love beautiful. And I keep coming back to this film, keep rebuying it, keep it by my DVD player in the heavy rotation stack, because I so badly want to experience that beauty. I don’t want love that leads to domesticity: forty years of eating dinner with the same person every night, having them call you whenever you’re half an hour late, sitting watching television, talking about your day. I don’t want bills, and mortgages, and insurance. When I find the person that was made for me, I want a few months of intense laughter, all night conversations and blissful love making. Then I will die for them. Hopefully I’ll know the right person when I find them. I tried to die for someone once, but he kept calling the paramedics. Chalk that one up to teenage over-dramatics. I've decided that when it’s time to go I want to be shot in the chest. I don’t want a long boring hospital death, like Ali McGraw has. Everything I want to say to my lover I’ll be able to say with my last breath. He’ll be holding me, staring into my eyes, begging me not to go. My blood on his hands and in spatters on his lips. Haemorrhage by Fuel will be playing in the background. I’ll tell him that I have to go, that it was worth it, that at least we got to be together for a little while. Then I’ll start to slip away and he’ll pull me closer, his tears hot and wet on my neck. I am ready for the sting of the bullet and the darkness of eternal sleep. I’m a tragic figure, and my narrative is already in process. When I meet my Ryan O’Neal, the dues ex machina will push me towards that final scene. Lying in his arms, our eyes glistening, his heart beat in my ear as I’m swallowed up by his chest. My fingers unclasp from his locks of amber hair and the camera pans up to the sky. Roll credit.