Loving Review
PG13: Thematic Elements
Focus Features, Random Films, Big Beach, Augusta Films, Tri-State Pictures
2 Hrs and 3 Minutes
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga, Nick Kroll, Michael Shannon, Marton Csokas, Bill Camp
REVIEW: One of the most infamous court cases of history has been the 1967 Loving v. Virginia. It has been in the history books for ages. It was a question I covered in my U.S History Regents. Recently there has been a good amount of film with a similar theme of social injustice. From The Birth of a Nation to even Zootopia these films brought out strong messages of discrimination and racism people face in communities today. But none of these films are as powerful as Jeff Nichols’ Loving.
The film follows the courtship and marriage of Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man. They are arrested and sentenced to prison in Virginia in 1958 because their interracial marriage violates the state's anti-miscegenation laws. Exiled to Washington, D.C., they sue the state of Virginia in a series of proceedings leading to the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Loving v. Virginia, which holds that laws prohibiting interracial marriage are unconstitutional.
THE GOOD: It is rare that a director releases two films in the same year, they are both remarkably good but in this year’s case Nichols has released great and greater. In March his original film Midnight Special was released and now he has Loving, a historical narrative drama. With this being his fifth film and the first that hasn’t come from an original concept, Loving plays its topic very safely yet being capable of saying a lot. The direction of this film is amazing. They filmed on location at the actual court the Lovings had their trial in 1958, at the jail, they were held in, and the home they raised their kids in. Nichols takes advantage of the time the film is set in from the late 50s transitioning into the 60s. This isn’t a film based on performances but is based on it's story. Mildred and Richard Loving aren’t characters of many words but of many actions.
Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga does a great job capturing the essence of the Lovings with their mannerisms and their southern accents. And keep in mind Edgerton is of Australian descent and Negga being of Irish and Ethiopian descent. You feel for them not as characters but as people. Their situation gets so depressing in because they are oppressed by their own state government and citizens living in their county just for being together. One might think physical retaliation but they aren’t those type of people. They don’t fight back against anyone with their fist because they know the consequences would just get much more severe than it already is. The Lovings just take the abuse and you genuinely feel sad for them. The only way they can fight against their injustice is by taking legal action that they don’t realize until the Civil Rights Movement was beginning to become popularized.
The film never become over the top melodramatic with the issues that this couple has to face. It’s very human with both its screenplay and storytelling. The film is not much with dialogue, but it says all the right things it needs to. Towards the end of the film, there is a conversation between Richard Loving and Bernard S. Cohen that concise all of the issues the film builds up with the people criticism on the couple. And the scene ends with one beautiful sentence. And that sentence. That one response perfectly displayed people’s actual feelings of true love over a law that restrict certain love and it is moving. It’s a one-two punch to your heart and its effective. It is that Best Picture scene that drops the mic after hitting you emotionally in a scene like that.
THE BAD: The only nitpick I have against this film is a montage. There is a montage that progresses over five years or so. You can obviously tell how much the time that is passed because of the number of kids you see the Lovings have and their age progression. You see the kids aging but not the parents. The Lovings does not age a bit. They look just as young and pure as they were in the beginning of the film. As I said and I beg. CONSISTENCY! Use make-up put bags under their eyes or something. The film takes place over the span of 1958 to 1967 and by 1967 they look exactly the same as they did in 1958. It is an issue I had with Lion and it just transcends into here. The only people you really do see age are their children, Mildred’s sister, and her mother yet not on the leads.
THE RENDY: Is this the year where funny people from TV are taking up serious roles. It seems like it since The Big Bang Theory’s Simon Helberg did a phenomenal job in Florence Foster Jenkins and here we have comedian Nick Kroll as Bernard Cohen. I mean he does a fine job in this film and he looks just like Cohen, but it's hard to not think Nick Kroll as Nick Kroll.
LAST STATEMENT: Loving has Jeff Nichols knocking 2016 out of the ballpark by capturing a truly powerful and moving story that is quiet with dialogue yet effectively loud with its message that still goes on to this day.
Rating: 5/5 | 96%
Super Scene: “Anything you want me to say to the Supreme Court?”
Writer/Director Jeff Nichols and I after a BAFTA Q&A Screening
