Jeff Nichols
Loving

Knowing how to portray ordinary people is not a given at all. Yes, because although it talks about a case that set a legal precedent, Loving is about ordinary people. Director and screenwriter Jeff Nichols does it very well, without heavy-handedness, without necessarily needing to extract messages, symbols, or epic narratives. No, the story of the Loving couple is deeply intimate, even though it became a watershed for the entire nation. Nichols wants to focus on the family dimension, the loving, psychological aspect of the matter. And he tackles it with great delicacy, with impeccable timing and methods.

An evident chemistry is created between the two leading actors, Joel Edgerton and the splendid Ruth Negga. And then that's enough—apparently—for the film to proceed, wisely but never overtly directed by the director. The cinematic experience is perceptual before being narrative. You immerse yourself in these people's daily lives, savoring their normality and profound dignity. This doesn't mean making them better than they are. Richard Loving has his obvious limits, yet he possesses an unyielding strength that keeps him from even considering leaving his wife. In an opposite yet equal way, Mildred is sharp, astute, but sometimes fragile, too passive. Over time, she will learn to assert herself more and more.

Edgerton's character is solid, but at times schematic, while Ruth Negga's character is truly wonderful, poetic. The actress's expressions paint a whole rainbow of feelings, fears, joys, and hopes, with great delicacy.

The cinema of Nichols is particularly mature and calm. Without shouting, without emphasis, it still manages to dot all the i’s. From murky judicial issues, to the zeal of law enforcement, to social tensions, to the complications in relationships with colleagues, family, and friends. It's all there in this film, yet it has an unsuspected lightness. It's thanks to the style, the music, the settings, the right alternation between problematic issues and the joys of daily life. This careful construction isn't even noticeable. The film flows as if there were no one shooting it, it's of miraculous spontaneity. And Ruth Negga's performance is a sublime confirmation of this.

The perfectly reconstructed (or recreated) spontaneity by the actors finds its highest and most beautiful expression at the moment when a Life magazine photographer visits the Loving couple. The photograph capturing them on the couch, cuddled up, amused while watching a TV show, immortalizes their purity of soul. On the other hand, their antithesis is not so much the police officers or judges, but attorney Cohen, entirely uninterested in their human story and solely focused on achieving his particular goal, to become famous, repeatedly putting their freedom at risk.

7/10