This review was originally published on News Cult in November 2016.
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga, Nick Kroll
Director: Jeff Nichols
Running Time: 123 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Prejudice and the Paranoia That Goes with It
Release Date: November 4, 2016 (Limited)
Director Jeff Nichols is known for including a tinge of the supernatural in his films, especially the apocalyptic Take Shelter and the little-kid-with-mysterious-powers thriller Midnight Special. But even in his ostensibly more realistic pics, like the Southern McConaissance drama Mud, there is a spiritually arousing sense of magic in the air. His latest, Loving, which tells the true-life story behind the 1967 Supreme Court case that struck down the last of this country’s anti-miscegenation laws, achieves that same miraculous sense of wonder by keeping the focus on the day-to-day realities of committed romance under siege.
As Richard (Joel Edgerton) and Mildred (Ruth Negga) Loving’s case makes it way from the local county court to the Virginia Supreme Court all the way to the highest court in the land, there are surprisingly few scenes that actually take place inside a courtroom. The message effectively becomes: love speaks for itself. The film does not see the need for showstopping dramatic speeches, because who needs to be convinced about the rightness of what those speeches would say? Instead, the story mostly sticks with the Lovings’ domestic life, which is constantly under siege, but resolutely tender.
Despite Loving’s lack of interest in legal jargon or courtroom clichés, it does make time for a mini-arc for the titular couple’s main lawyer. When we meet him, Bernard Cohen (Nick Kroll) has little experience with civil rights cases, but he is ambitious enough, or foolhardy enough, to plow right ahead to a potential meeting with the Supreme Court. The casting of Kroll, as much of a novice to high-profile drama as Cohen is to precedent-setting litigation, proves surprisingly apt.
As essential as Kroll’s performance is, it is (like the rest of the movie, and as it should be) all in service to the Lovings. The key line comes when Cohen asks Richard, who has declined to appear during the Supreme Court hearing, if he would like him to tell the justices anything. “Tell the judge I love my wife,” he declares softly but demonstrably.
Edgerton plays Richard as a man who just wants to get on with making a good life for his wife and children. He is uncomfortable with the media attention his marriage receives and flummoxed by the prejudice it engenders. This is in sharp contrast to Negga, who plays Mildred with fragile expressions that belie her steely emotions. Their complementary approaches to overcoming the ordeal of their life are inspiring. It feels like they were destined to be the couple to break down barriers. The poetic perfection of their last name also contributes to that sense. If they were not already called the Lovings, supernaturally inclined Jeff Nichols would have had to christen them thus.
Loving is Recommended If You Like: To Kill a Mockingbird, That feeling you got when the Supreme Court ruled gay marriage constitutional, Actors who look just like the real people they’re portraying
Grade: 4 out of 5 Loves That Conquer All
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