Some of you did not watch Canada’s Pairs Skaters, Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, as they evoked on ice the heart-stopping romance of Erich Segal’s Love Story as its award-winning theme song for the movie stunningly played. I also realize that some of you, though having experienced their gold medal-winning performance, did not appreciate their artistry as much as others, like me, who have watched Love Story. You are who I’m writing for, for, having already reviewed Love Story, this is a skating-enhanced review of Segal’s 1978 sequel to Love Story, Oliver’s Story.

To better understand the sequel, please bear in mind that Jenny, a poor, smart music student and rich Oliver’s beloved wife, has died from leukemia and Oliver’s father, Oliver Barrett III., has finally accepted Jenny after hearing of her illness, only to hear that it’s too late to get to know her.

It begins with Oliver’s wife’s funeral on a cold New York afternoon. David and Jamie soar onto the ice and he spins her into a death spiral, slowing down ominously until he lets her go to sprawl on the ice, which happens as Oliver, all by himself, sees the casket lower into the ground. He explains to his shrink later on that he did this because he owed closure to Jenny, but that was only a mind thing. His heart had not left Jenny at all, as we shall discover.

Eighteen months pass with Oliver, fondly captured by Ryan O’Neal, existing solely as a lawyer and trying to help the poor to live in better homes by allowing them to fix them up themselves. His father-in-law, played by a different actor than in Love Story, as well as his best friends, are concerned about him and encourage him to meet women through a dinner at a bar and at their home.

Jamie rises from the ice to meet David and wrap around him in a spiral spin as Oliver becomes uncomfortable with his attraction to the woman he was set up with and rejects her hopeful advances.

Oliver then starts seeing a psychiatrist who first recommends that he become healthy physically. Oliver takes his skates to Central Park at the beginning of spring, but it’s being drained and a passing, female runner sniggers at him a couple of times. Incensed he sprints after her and demands to know what’s so funny. Jamie and David separate now to do side by side sit spins, which builds to include other kinds of elegant spins in perfect symmetry. It’s as if Jenny approves of this other woman he’s intrigued with.

Marcy, as smartly and beautifully portrayed by Candice Bergen, agrees to play tennis with him at six the next morning with the incentive of the winner picking a restaurant and when she whips him in a few games, but agrees to give him another chance (where he whips her!), he falls in love. Both are gun-shy, though, not identifying themselves at first or giving phone numbers, but she finds him when he can’t find her and the relationship becomes more light-hearted and intimate.

Jamie is skating beside David in his arms, weaving over the ice, and then he throws her in a triple spin that she lands perfectly, which is because Oliver admits to Marcy that he felt guilty for the sex, but because he did not think of Jenny.

Now Oliver is allowed to visit her at work and discovers that she is helping to run a big fashion company that her late father owned. He admits he also grew up stinking rich. This is when tension grows as Oliver shows his rejection of his upperclassness and wanting to identify with the poor like Jenny was (and his father wasn't). Marcy points out to him that he would be more comfortable being the way he and she were meant to be, and his shrink listens to his concerns, encouraging him to wonder if Jenny is still controlling his life. This comes to a head in Hong Kong, where she’s invited him as she does business with the store’s factories and a fashion shoot, but makes the mistake of complaining about Jenny.

Again Jamie and David are holding hands as he lifts her above his head and all eyes are on her. Jenny is running the show obviously, center stage in Oliver’s heart.

Fortunately the movie does not end with sappy apologies and a desperate reunion with Marcy. Oliver had visited his aging parents a month earlier and been invited to his father’s retirement party. He rejected the family business plea of his father then, so nobly dramatized by Oscar-winning actor Ray Milland (Dial M For Murder, Love Story), but now, lost after the break-up with Marcy and his psychiatrist’s brief, but thought-provoking words, Oliver surprises his folks at the party—and surprises himself.

David once again spins Jamie into an ever-slowing death spiral that ends by letting go of her hand, but this time she slides on her knees and looks upward as David does, for Oliver and Jenny’s spirit are both awaiting his future life among the living.


Final Comments

At a finely-orchestrated hour and a half showing, this sequel was much, much better than I had expected. I actually didn’t feel like I was watching a movie for it was such a perfect and tastefully-written continuation of the classic Segal story. In fact, Segal cowrote the screenplay with director John Korty. Marcy may have been different from Jenny in that she was rich, but she was just as feisty and quick-witted. One Jennyesque remark was when Oliver warned her that he ate like an elephant and she drolly replied, “I’m not surprised since you run like one.”

Even the sessions with his shrink were only highlighted, only stopping the action to hear Oliver’s reflections and the doctor’s guidance for two minutes tops. These are quality actors giving it their whole heart because they believed in the message of loving yourself and not living in the past. Candice Bergen, I read, was making up with her famous father who was not long for this world, would be nominated for her role in Starting Over and later join the set of Gandhi. She and Ryan O’Neal clicked, in my opinion.

As for Ray Milland, I fell in love with him as an actor and will look for The Lost Weekend where he won his Oscar. After fifty years plus in the movies and television, he died from lung cancer March 10, 1986. RIP. Ryan O’Neal still makes movies while Bergen was most recently in Miss Congeniality, now hosting a show on the Oxygen network.

The first time watching the ending didn’t affect me like the second time. Maybe it’s because I expected more dramatics with teary apologies and such, but I realized that’s a female thing. This movie is from a man's perspective, one who was told by his late wife that love means never having to say you're sorry.

Rather the movie ended honestly with the realization that growth is a slow process and taking the first step is to be celebrated.

I can’t more highly recommend this sequel to all who loved Love Story, those who loved Jamie and David’s free skate and those who have lost a beloved mate. I hope that the rest of you, too, will be inspired to make a date night of the two movies. Everything, including the gentle, melodic music when appropriate, was pure artistry in Oliver’s Story just as if the Canadians had skated to it.




Recommended: Yes