November 30, 2016 -- This is a historical drama based on the lives of Richard and Mildred Loving, whose conviction for the crime of interracial marriage was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1967 case of Loving Vs. Virginia.

Joel Edgerton (“Black Mass”) stars as Richard Loving and Ruth Negga (“World War Z”) stars as Mildred Loving, his wife. Richard is white, while Mildred is of black and Native American blood. Although legally married in Washington D.C., their marriage is illegal and invalid in Virgina, where they live.

Police arrest the couple and jail them. A local lawyer arranges a plea bargain. In return for their guilty pleas, the two must agree to leave Virginia for 25 years. Either Richard, or Mildred can return to Virginia at any time prior to that, but only separately. They can't both be in the state at the same time before the 25 years is up. The Lovings both agree to take the deal, rather than face prison time.

The couple moves to Washington, D.C. to live, but their families are in Virginia, so they are tempted to return, and finally do return, where they are once again caught by police, and once again are allowed to leave the state, thanks to their lawyer, who is friends with the local judge.

Mildred, who is not happy living in the city, writes to Attorney General Robert Kennedy about her case. Kennedy forwards her letter to the America Civil Liberties Union, which sees the Loving case as a way to overturn state laws against mixed race marriages, but the Lovings don't like the legal strategy of being arrested again just to get the case back in court.

More time goes by and Mildred finally decides to move back to Virginia with their children, despite the threat of arrest. Meanwhile the ACLU comes up with a new legal strategy to get the Loving case back in court, without the Lovings having to necessarily face arrest. The Lovings agree to the new legal strategy, and the case moves forward with Bernie Cohen (played by Nick Kroll) and Philip J. Hirschkop (Jon Bass) as lawyers representing the Lovings.

The film is mostly about the difficulties faced by the Loving family because of these legal problems and their desire to live in Virginia without being hassled by the police and courts. The film also depicts how the Lovings became the objects of a lot of publicity and news coverage.

Since I only knew the broad outlines of this story, the twists and turns of it came as a bit of a surprise. The acting is excellent by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga, as well as the supporting cast. Every story needs a bad guy and Marton Csokas fills the bill as the pitiless, racist Sheriff Brooks, who arrests the Lovings, and feels very justified in doing so. This film rates a B.

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Copyright © 2016 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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