Emboldened by very strong performances from the two leads, Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga, the film remains a by-the-numbers, triumph-of-justice historical drama, which has little in the way of visual imagination or narrative tension. “It celebrates some struggles that shouldn’t have had to exist”.
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Writer-director Jeff Nichols is already having a fantastic year that will most likely continue to impress; the auteur was met with acclaim earlier this year with the release of Midnight Special, and is now receiving the same positive feedback at the Cannes Film Festival with his latest feature – Loving.
Inspired by the documentary The Loving Story (directed by Nancy Buirski), the film centers on Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple who married in June 1958.
Speaking at the press conference for the film in Cannes, Nichols, Edgerton and Negga politely dodged questions about next year’s Academy Awards -“I’m practicing my acceptance speech”, Edgerton joked -but they did speak to the broader importance of the film in the debate on race and equality in the U.S. “You can sit at your armchair at home and espouse all these issues but they affect people”.
Negga said she found it “quite shocking” that Alabama took until 2000 to become the last USA state to wipe a law against interracial marriage from the books. “If people are doing things out of the spirit of kindness or goodness, if they’re not damaging or affecting other people negatively, then what’s wrong with the bond between two people – whatever they look like, whatever gender they are?”
The Irish-Ethiopian actress called Loving “the most important film I’ve ever made and it is one of the most important films in history”.
Australian actor Joel Edgerton yesterday drew a comparison between old American state laws against mixed-race marriages and the continuing block on gay marriage in Australia.
“I hope this is the quiet film of the year”.
“It was like being with a friend for two years”, she said of Mildred. “But there is something very simple about the truth and that was a guideline into the story”.
At the press conference after the screening, Nichols said, “I truly believe this is one of the most pure love stories in American history”, and indeed, nearly every beat in the story flows from that point. Richard, a simple, taciturn man who loves his wife deeply, thinks no one will care much about their nuptials, an assumption that proves grievously wrong after their arrest, when they’re threatened with jail time and the best possible outcome is that they’re not allowed back in the state for 25 years. “A conversation is always good”. Yeah, I can’t wait for people to see it because there’s a National Loving Day on June 12, but I don’t think their story has got the amount of exposure that I think it deserves. “I think what people forget when they’re so heated in their debates is the people at the centre”. “People are becoming less afraid to have controversial discussions”.
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“Loving”, which will open theatrically in the heart of awards season in November, is an unconventional civil rights drama that doesn’t swell with amplified Hollywood moments.
