Loving - Movie Review

LOVING (PG-13) Starring Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga, Michael Shannon, Marton Csokas, Nick Kroll, Will Dalton, Bill Camp, Terri Abney, Alano Miller and Jon Bass.
Written & Directed by Jeff Nichols.

★★★½

In the hands of someone else, this could have been a boisterous, fire-and-brimstone epic courtroom  battle of a movie. And that could have been good. But Jeff Nichols keeps it quiet and intimate, and therefore probably more faithful to its main characters and what it felt like to them at the time they were going through their struggles.

It's the true story of Richard & Mildred Loving (Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga), two people in 1958 who just wanted to be married, but since he was white and she was black, they couldn't legally do so in the state of Virginia. They get married in DC, but at home, they have to hide it. What followed was a flurry of legal troubles.

There is no one better at intimate rural dramas than Arkansas native Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Mud). Richard and Mildred are quiet, humble country people, and Nichols stays true to them throughout. We don't get a cool Supreme Court scene because Richard and Mildred didn't attend.