Loving

Loving is based on the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving who travelled to Washington, DC from their home in Virginia to get married in 1958. The reason they travelled so far was because Richard (Joel Edgerton), a bricklayer who build their home and seemingly practically everyone else's, was a white man while Mildred (Ruth Negga) was a black woman. Unfortunately their home state was one of the remaining states that still banned marriages between whites and non-whites.

Not that getting married in another state made much difference because the local Sheriff (Martin Csokas) and his deputies soon raided their house in the early hours to enforce 'God's Law'. Presumably they were hoping to catch them having sex, which was also illegal between whites and non-whites, but had to settle for them simply sleeping side by side. When they pointed out their marriage certificate on the wall they were told that the certificate had no significance in Virginia.

The Lovings were charged with 'cohabiting as man and wife' and pleaded guilty. They were sentenced to a year in prison with the sentence suspended on condition that they left the state for 25 years. So they upped sticks and moved to Columbia.

Richard was a quiet, private man of few words who just wanted to be left in peace to live his life but his wife was more feisty and she agrees to two lawyers, Bernie Cohen (Nick Kroll) and Phil Hirschkop (Jon Bass), fighting their case. 

In the meantime, feeling frustrated by being unable to visit their families, they quietly moved back to Virginia where they live on the outskirts, trying to stay below the radar but clearly not too far below the radar as their situation gets featured in Life magazine which gives their case valuable publicity.

When the local courts find against them their lawyers take the case to the federal Supreme Court where the court decides that prohibiting interracial marriage is in fact unconstitutional.

Loving is an informative and pleasant film but a bit on the slow side, it inches along at times, but at least it’s not the overtly sentimental melodrama it could have been. Some more back story would have been nice, perhaps about how they met, and although the Lovings didn’t want to attend the court case I certainly would have liked to have done. Instead, in keeping with the rest of the film, the court’s verdict is delivered in a rather low key phone call to Mildred.