The reviews divide almost evenly, and the split runs along the calendar: critics writing in 1970 mostly like it, and critics writing since mostly do not. Where there is praise, it clusters on Arthur Hiller’s direction, which several reviews credit with giving Erich Segal’s thin story colour, detail and a sense of place. Ryan O’Neal draws the warmest notices among the cast, with John Marley and Ray Milland noted in support; Ali MacGraw is admired by some and doubted by others.
The reservations are about the material rather than the making. The later reviews call the characters flat, the tragedy contrived and the values regressive, and Empire wonders what anyone who knows the ending is meant to get from it beyond a cry. The spread could hardly be wider. Slant finds it close to unwatchable, singling out the over-lit faces and the wedding scene; Variety, at the other end, thinks it succeeds on every level.