[yasr_overall_rating]
Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, are sentenced to prison in Virginia in 1958 for getting married.
Interracial couple Richard (Joel Edgerton) and Mildred Loving (Ruth Negga) were too busy living the life they dreamed of than to be concerned about naysayers who believed in their self-imposed rules of socialism. From the moment they met, Richard began making lifelong plans to make Mildred his wife, and to build their home on land that would secure their future. When they fell in love and married in 1958, their decision to live in Virginia was a violation of the state’s anti-miscegenation laws. When they acquired attorneys, their prison sentences were suspended on the condition they leave the state for 25 years. The couple who had grown up in Central Point, VA, relocated to the Washington, DC area and attempted to make a life for themselves. When they decided they had missed their native home life a bit too much, they made the ultimate decision to go back to Virginia and quicker than they could settle comfortably, their lives changed forever with the racist treatment they began receiving. Their struggle with the locals interrupted their children’s lives as well as their own and eventually the A.C.L.U. took on their case and it ended in 1967 when the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, stating that marriage was a basic human right.
Director Jeff Nichols did a wonderful job recapturing the relationship that was first exposed in a 2012 HBO Documentary entitled “The Loving Story.” While the documentary included real life clips of the couple, the current film does an amazing job of tracking the progress of a relationship where Richard and Mildred were strong in their beliefs that they would survive this public scrutiny and remain unscathed throughout the process. The truth though, is that the constant meddling and heinous acts did take their toll on the family and friends, but even after Richard’s death, Mildred remained a staunch supporter of racial equality. The story is slow moving, but it eventually builds itself into an entertaining and educational rediscovery of how love conquers all when you remain steadfast in your beliefs that extend beyond hatred and discourse in a society that underestimates the power of forward-thinking people.
In theaters November 11th
