‘Love Story’ Wasn’t Really About John or Carolyn

Ms. Givhan is a contributing Opinion writer.

“Love Story,” the fictionalized, televised account of the doomed romance between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, ended Thursday evening amid paeans to its minimalist fashion, memories of guiltlessly languid smoking, a perfect Gen X soundtrack and scenes of a ’90s Manhattan social swirl untethered to cellphones and social media. But I watched it for the steely dowagers with immobile bouffants, learned matrons, socialite survivors, quiet optimizers of power, veteran observers of human nature. Theirs are the voices I won’t soon forget.

In the Ryan Murphy mini-series, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, her sister-in-law Ethel Kennedy and........

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