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DVD review: 'Love Story'

Just in time for Valentine's Day comes the Blu-ray edition of one of the most commercially popular and critically polarizing romantic heartbreakers of all time, “Love Story.”

Many critics slagged this weeper for being shamelessly manipulative, contrived and soapy, blowing raspberries at the film's most famous quote — “Love means never having to say you're sorry” — for being a ridiculous sentiment.

Perhaps it is. But for those of us who are suckers for a good old fashioned boy-meets-girl tear fest — and there must be a bunch of us, judging from the millions raked in by the film and the Erich Segal novel on which it was based — this is melodramatic manna from heaven.

As the title indicates, this Arthur Hiller-directed piece is told with beautiful simplicity, giving away its tragic ending with the opening voice-over from Ryan O'Neal as Oliver Barrett IV: “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?”

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