Jeff Nichols’ latest, LOVING, is one of the best films I’ve seen at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, and it will be a strong contender this awards season. It tells the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and black woman who were married in Virginia in 1958. They were arrested for it, and ordered to leave the state for 25 years. Eventually their case went to the Supreme Court and ultimately overturned all remaining miscegenation laws.
When I read the description of the film in the TIFF guide, I though, hmm, that sounds important, but potentially boring. Two things got me to check it out though. First, a critic friend of mine, said that it was his favorite film of the year. But I was especially curious because it was directed by Jeff Nichols. I love his work, particularly his previous film about a struggle over a superpowered child, MIDNIGHT SPECIAL.
LOVING is a simple story — it is about a man and woman who love each other and just want to be left alone. It needs no embellishment. Hollywood films usually can’t resist the urge to tinker though. They might combine characters, omit complicating circumstances, or thrown in a big, rousing courtroom seen. As far as I can tell, LOVING didn’t do that. There’s even a scene where huge news is delivered via phone call, and we only even see one half of it. And yet that flouting of convention makes for an even *more* powerful scene, because the one right after, just one character staring at another broke me down. This movie stays true, stays grounded, and as a result it draws you even deeper into these characters’ lives.
Movies like this either succeed or fail based on the performance of the leads. They hit the jackpot here with Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga. They are individually great, but most importantly, they absolutely sell this relationship. Ruth Negga gives us a Mildred who shows us a spectrum of emotion as she gets pregnant, married, arrested, becomes a mom, and lives in forced exile in Washington D.C. in short order. We then get to see the couple go through all kinds of ups and downs over the next decade as they have more kids, more family drama, and flirt with ruination by occasionally flouting the corrupt laws driving a wedge into their lives.
The performance of Joel Edgerton is equally great, and it is the one that really blew me away. He has to play a taciturn Southern man who doesn’t easily show emotion, yet is caught in this no-win situation that completely emasculates him. He’s expected to provide for his family, to protect them, and yet he’s at the mercy of forces beyond his control. It just rips at the core of his being, but he has to soldier on. There is a physicality to his performance, and an understated nature to it that just draws you in.
There are plenty of well acted supporting roles too. The largest is comedian Nick Kroll playing it mostly straight as one of the couple’s lawyers. And of course this wouldn’t be a Jeff Nichols movie without Michael Shannon. He’s only in it for a few minutes as a photographer though. It is really the dozens of members of the supporting cast playing people in the community and extended Loving family that I’m most impressed with. Some were from the region, and some were actual members of the real family. Collectively they help to immerse you in 1958 Virginia.
I’m from the South (Jacksonville), so I’m hypersensitive to Hollywood carpetbagging. It is a pet peeve of mine when actors from around the world try to pretend they are from the South, when there are so many fine actors from the region who could do a more authentic job. This is exacerbated by the fact that actors and directors sometimes do not appreciate that there is not just one Southern accent. An upper class white person from Virginia is going to sound completely different from a farmer from Georgia, who again is going to sound worlds apart from anyone from Louisiana. Fortunately Jeff Nichols is from Arkansas, so he gets all this. So even though he cast an Ethiopian-Irish actress and an Australian actor in the lead roles, they absolutely nailed the speech and behavior patters of people from that time and place. I’d say this is a minor miracle, but there is nothing divine about it. Kudos to the hard work of everyone involved to do the serious homework necessary to make this work.
Aside from the on-the-surface struggle against racism that is the primary theme of the movie, there are even deeper things going on. Of course today’s equivalent struggle is the right to same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court decision on that referenced the LOVING decision, so that’s an obvious direct link. But beyond that, this movie tackles a subject that most people from the South have wrestled with at some point. How do you reconcile loving a place and the friends and family you have there with the fact that the culture is dangerously racist? I dodged the question because work took me elsewhere. But some have to live it every day.
In the end, LOVING works because it is an extraordinarily crafted film, and a surprising one. Go see for the outstanding performances. Go see it because Jeff Nichols is a wonderful director. And go see it because the Richard and Mildred Loving were amazing people whose story deserves to be told.
