Loving

Year: 2016

Genre: Drama

Directed: Jeff Nichols

Stars: Ruth Negga, Joel Edgerton, Nick Kroll, Joel Bass, Will Dalton, Terri Abney, Alano Miller, Chris Greene, Sharon Blackwood, Christopher Mann, Marton Csokas, Matt Malloy, Michael Shannon

Production: Big Beach Films

The sad, shameful story of Loving comes undiluted from an American past we consistently fail to acknowledge. In 1958 Richard Loving (Edgerton), a white resident of Caroline County, Virginia wedded his young love Mildred Jeter (Negga) a colored woman. Subsequently, the couple was arrested for violating Virginia’s miscegenation law, and given the choice to either leaving the state or serving a year in jail. “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents,” the judge wrote. “The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

Unsurprisingly, Loving stands against the above sentiment with uncommon poise and magnanimity. By virtue of existing and existing at a time when racial relations in America seem to be headed backwards, Loving can be considered a valiant parable. Upon further research one can also appreciate the film’s historical accuracy; Mildred Loving did in-fact mail Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the Loving case itself was not a purposeful cause by activists, but rather a couple who naively thought the state would turn a blind eye to their love.

Yet somewhere in between Loving’s pre-production and post-production all semblance of enthusiasm, charisma, and charm was lost. Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga, otherwise accomplished actors, stumble through scene to scene pigeon-toed; understating everything from cautious late-night drives to the struggle of maintaining an engine block. Of course the gamble to understate everything could have worked, if we were given room to breathe. But sadly the editing is too coarse to allow our able cast to carry the scene through. It’s as if director Jeff Nichols didn’t have faith that audience members would have patience so he tried to have it both ways – deliberate pace; snappy editing.

What’s left in the scattershot is just gravitas – a film so confident in its message that it doesn’t feel the need to back up its careful, albeit beautiful compositions with any real drama. Loving’s complete lack of urgency follows the film like a cipher, disabling it from becoming anything more than a slow-paced drudge. Perhaps I’m more speaking to the politics of the day but the contents of this film deserves a bullhorn not a whisper.

Final Grade: C-