Editor Chloe Woods reviews Jeff Nichols’ touching Cannes favourite – now finally released in the UK following Ruth Negga’s Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
Does it help? Retelling this story?
Richard and Mildred Loving (Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga) were at the centre of the 1967 Loving vs Virginia trial, which declared all the US’s anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. As a white man and a “coloured” (black) woman, they had not previously been allowed to live as a married couple in the state of Virginia – their birthplace and home. The film Loving follows Richard and Mildred in the years between their marriage and their victory in the Supreme Court, and charts the pressures which drove them to take on a battle they had little interest in fighting.
We wouldn’t think it matters now. Nobody in the western world has seriously contested mixed-race marriages in the fifty years since that ruling. Unlike, say, the heroines of Hidden Figures, the Lovings were famous at the time and there are already well-known accounts of their lives. But hey. People have made less warranted biopics.
The actors, first of all, are exemplary. This most obviously applies to Negga and Edgerton: the first as the conflicted and determined Mildred, the second portraying Richard as a man who cares for nothing more than his wife’s happiness and well-being. With the film intimately focused on the Lovings, few other characters receive a significant degree of screen time or development; but the supporting cast is strong and helps to flesh out the world they inhabit.
As presented here, the Lovings are simple people who would like to be left in peace: to live as husband and wife, not be forced to move miles from home, and raise their children in a suitable environment. They are not concerned with the wider effects of their actions and do not see why anybody should be bothered about theirs. Like the Lovings themselves, the film takes the rightness of their case for granted: it’s not a polemic. (Or if it’s meant to be it fails as one, because it never makes an argument to convince anyone not already convinced. The Lovings’ relationship brings no harm and plenty of good: that may be enough for us, but the worst racists do not think like that. They will not be won over. This is fine; I don’t think that was ever the point.) It’s also, more surprisingly, not a love story. The bond between Mildred and Richard, and the strength of their marriage, is taken for granted by the film. We’re shown early that they do love each other deeply, but – between their failure to communicate and divergent approaches to their predicament – the relationship feels fraught at times. This is a problem. It doesn’t need to be a love story, but we should know whether the bond at the core of the film can be relied upon. (If the relationship was not meant to be trusted, it would be one thing, but it comes across more as a filmmaking fumble than deliberate uncertainty.)
If not a love story, then what is it? It’s a love story. Sorry. It is; the love story’s just not between Richard and Mildred. Early in the film, they opt to leave the state rather than separate, and this shows decisively their love for each other is stronger than that for their homes and families. The question, then, is whether that second love is strong enough for the Lovings to claim their right to both. Opening with the announcement of Mildred’s pregnancy, much of the film focuses on their children, and it’s their children who always drive them back to Virginia. This makes it unfortunate that one of the key points relating to the state of their marriage – the question of miscegenation and mixed-race children – is left unmentioned until near the end of the film. It would have been more effective to present that stake early on, even if the Lovings themselves were unaware of the issue.
The film in general has a “show, don’t tell” problem. Usually, this would mean “telling” is used in place of “showing”; here, it’s an admirable attempt to show stymied by confusion over which is which. Scenes so explicit they come across as patronising are no less clumsy exposition than the most awkward dialogue and, equally, some issues could afford a little more discussion. (“Show, don’t tell” doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to use your words.) Other sequences work beautifully – the black workers in the fields, the jail scenes in which Richard is not allowed to bail out Mildred for their shared crime, and the shopping montage all come to mind – and it’s admittedly a difficult balancing act for a film spanning ten years. But this is not the only area in which the film suffers inconsistency. The introduction of two garish, city-slicking lawyers (Nick Kroll, Jon Bass) in the second half is accompanied by attempts at humour which might be more successful if they didn’t jar with the film’s already-established tone. The camerawork varies between gorgeous and utterly pedestrian in an almost documentary-style manner, and along with the film’s absence of a soundtrack at many points it sometimes feels as though it can’t decide whether it wants to be a film or a narrative reconstruction. The soundtrack itself could have exploited its eclectic mix of bluegrass, blues and other styles more effectively to evoke 1950s and ‘60s Americana.
The film has deeper issues than this. It’s not a clever movie and I don’t get the impression it’s trying to be, but that doesn’t excuse structural issues of which the swings in tone are only part. The thematic undercurrent of the film is building – Richard Loving is a builder, and plans to build his own house for his family – and this might have been apt if the Lovings had, in fact, built anything. Instead they are largely passive in the conclusion of their own story, as bigger forces build momentum around their case and they take only the smallest of decisions to ride with it. And the decision they do make, to ask for help in the first place, feels unearned as a dramatic turn: the pressure driving the Lovings to fight back rather than continue to be pushed builds up over the years, but doesn’t feel like it’s built enough before it breaks. Though the logic is sound, the playout falls flat in the film itself.
Now, having criticised it for a thousand words, here’s the verdict: I loved this film. I don’t mean in the way you’d love a great movie; I mean in the way you’d fall in love with a puppy tripping over its own paws as it learns to walk. Loving is as sweet and earnest as its main characters. It may be visually and aurally inconsistent, suffer from unnecessary jokes, and have some deeper structural problems. It may not be a Great Film. And it won’t change any minds: if you’re determined to close your heart to the puppy, no puppy-dog eyes and hopeful tail-wagging will convince you otherwise. But for those of us who agree with the film’s key assumption – that there should have been no need for the Lovings to spend ten years in pain and uncertainty, in the wilderness, fighting for the right to stand exactly where they’d been in the first place – for those of us who agree with that, we are reminded that victories can be won, have been won; that the most bigoted of societies existed in our familiar, recent past, and that there were good and brave people in them nonetheless. I know we have some enemies, but we have some friends too. Does it help, retelling this story? Not if you’re trying to win an argument. But if you’re looking for courage, yes.
Loving is out now in UK cinemas. See the trailer below: