A quiet, tender portrait of one of America’s most important romances.
For the past 9 years, writer and director Jeff Nichols has been proving himself to be one of the more consistent, innovative, and compelling filmmaking voices of his generation, dating all the way back to his first feature, Shotgun Stories, to this year’s Midnight Special. Now, the filmmaker returns with his fifth feature film in Loving, which tells the true story of interracial couple Richard and Mildred Loving, who through their marriage and fight for justice in the 1960s American south helped to change the United States Constitution and continue to pave the way towards racial equality in America.
We meet Richard and Mildred at the beginning of their marriage, when Mildred had just become pregnant with their first child, and Richard drove her out of their Virginian hometown to Washington, D.C. to be married. Unfortunately, upon returning home to Virginia, a state with much stricter laws and views on interracial marriages, they’re forced to either face exile from their home and all of their loved ones, or be forced to separate. What follows is the true story of two people forced to live with more injustice than they ever should have, and their court case that eventually changed the nation’s constitutional outlook on interracial marriage forever.
Watching Loving, it feels like the kind of story practically made for Nichols to tell. Set in the American South, where all of his previous films have taken place and a region of the world that he has shown an adept skill at bringing to life on the big screen, and focusing on two quiet, well-intentioned people, Loving feels like it belongs in his filmography as much as any of his previous projects like Mud or Take Shelter, despite being a very specific historical drama or “biopic.”
As with all of his previous work, Nichols lets his writing shine by giving his actors the full spotlight as well, with Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga bringing Richard and Mildred to life with the kind of sensitivity and kindness that these two people deserve. It’s not hard to see why both actors have been on the receiving end of awards attention for their performances here, with Negga emerging as one of 2016’s biggest breakout stars thanks to both Loving and her role in AMC’s Preacher earlier this year.
Mildred undergoes a fairly drastic character arc from being a shy, naive young girl thinking she’s part of a Southern fairytale to a strong-minded woman willing and prepared to fight for her right to live her life how she wants, no matter how many laws she has to change in order to make it so, and Negga handles that change with a patience and subtle attention to detail that will make her hard to forget come awards season early next year.
Likewise, Joel Edgerton gives one of his best performances to date as Richard Loving, a man who spends a majority of the film, just doing everything he can to take care of his wife and kids. Richard can be a frustrating character at times, since he’s a man of very few words and often has a hard time articulating what it is he wants to or has to say. He’s forced to endure a number of emasculating and humiliating events throughout his life, and seeing Edgerton struggle to maintain the security in his family’s life that he knows they need, makes this one of the most heartbreaking performances of 2016.
There are admittedly, moments when Nichols’ penchant for drawing out long silences can make the middle section of the film drag. In spite of that however, it all culminates into a certain scene about two-thirds of the way through, involving Richard coming home from a night of drinking with his friends, that in most other films might have been turned into some kind of monologue or dramatic, emotional breakdown, but which wouldn’t have felt true to the characters of Loving. Instead, Nichols keeps his words small, and lets his actors to bring an emotion and profoundness to what they’re saying, that allows six words to pack more of an emotional sucker punch than a monologue ever could have.
In a year when it seems like the entire world is on the brink of being torn apart, Loving is a necessary, and important film that reminds us how similar we all are in the end. We all have the same goals and wants, and Nichols shows us that, without ever devolving Loving into an after school special. He does it by telling the story of two important, but unfortunately mostly forgotten people in American history, who feel more alive and authentic than most other biopics ever allow their real-life inspirations to feel. He presents Richard and Mildred Loving not as names in a court document, but as a man and wife who never allowed their love to be weakened by the external forces trying to pull them apart. These aren’t historical figures; they’re people, no different than you or me, and that’s ultimately, the point.
The Verdict
Loving is yet another home run effort from Jeff Nichols, that manages to feel equally quiet and sensitive as it does powerful and important.
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