FILM REVIEW: LOVING

eOne Films

Love is love. It's a simple sentiment, really, yet one that in practice continues to confound and confront the powers-that-be of Church and State. As Australia embarrassingly continues to stumble behind the rest of the Western world in recognising marriage equality, Jeff Nichols' Loving arrives not a moment too soon; reminding us of time when similar battles were being fought and, sadly, that the more things change . . .

Beginning in late 1950s Virginia, Loving tells the story of Richard (Joel Edgerton) and Mildred (Ruth Negga), childhood sweethearts who, with the impending birth of their first child, drive to Washington from the still segregated Virginia to marry.

The Lovings are preparing to build a life together, however, the law in Virginia is not prepared to accept a white man and a black woman - or vice versa - living in holy matrimony. After several arrests, which include police raids in the middle of the night, the Lovings agree to a commuted sentence in return for leaving the state and the promise never to return. But in the city, away from her family and the country where she ran and played as a child, and envisioned her children doing the same, Mildred wilts.

A letter to the Civil Liberties Union catches the attention of Robert Kennedy, and before long the Loving's case for inter-racial marriage is being heard before the United States Supreme Court (comedian Nick Kroll plays one of the Lovings' lawyers to slightly distracting effect).

Nichols' film, just his fifth and his second in the past year after Midnight Special, is an understated and restrained piece of filmmaking that allows the emotions of the Lovings -- similarly restrained but no less palpable -- tell the story. Ruth Negga, who received a Best Actress Oscar nomination, and Joel Edgerton, who gives a career-best performance, convey the deep-rooted love of Mildred and Richard through looks, gestures and body language. There is no emoting or grand gestures by either actor.

The same goes for the drama. A typical Hollywood film would have us in that courtroom hearing the arguments and the history-making verdict handed down. Here, it's treated almost as second-hand news by way of a phone call. Nichols' approach is the opposite of Amma Asante's in last year's A United Kingdom; a similar story of inter-racial love overcoming prejudice which was old fashioned and far from subtle in its telling.

Richard and Mildred Loving had to wait almost a decade for that Supreme Court decision and legal confirmation of what they, their friends and family already knew: that love is love. Here's hoping Australia doesn't waste that much time in reaching the same conclusion.