Score: 10
Cinematography: 8
Dialogue: 8
Rewatchable: Yes!
Jeff Nichols makes things small. Loving is a small movie in the sense that the movie focuses on a small portion of the events on which it is based.
If a director like Spielberg or Eastwood made this film, there would be sweeping courtroom battles, huge constructed period sets, so much gra gra that would threaten to drown you. But Jeff Nichols...he makes things small.
The movie is about an interracial couples fight to remain married, and how that fight led to a constitutional change in the US whereby miscegenation laws were repealed.
It is a really beautiful and touching film. And a pattern is starting to appear for Jeff Nichols films...plot-driven movies with an emotional core and restrained delivery.
Jeff Nichols wrote the screenplay and focused on the family and internal battles of the couple. Ruth Negga absolutely nailed her role, and has a well-deserved Oscar nomiination for Best Actress. I really hope she wins. (ANYONE apart from Meryl Streep or Emma Stone. Please)
Joel Edgerton, who is now working with Jeff Nichols for the second time, was solid. Nothing too fancy. In terms of supporting actors, Michael Shannon makes a delightful appearance later in the movie as a Life Magazine photographer that interviews the couple. I just like seeing Shannon in movies.
But the actor that was the most joy to watch, apart from Ruth Negga was this guy, Nick Kroll.
Whenever he was on screen, there was just something...a feeling I got that he was holding back. I will definitely be monitoring any other future projects he has. He has the feels of a dope actor.
Stills from the movie:
