Loving

The historical fiction telling of the story of Richard and Mildred Loving. These two lived in Virginia in the 60's and, since it was illegal to get married or co-habitate as a mixed race couple in Virginia, they traveled to Washington DC to get married. Unfortunately, the marriage license made no difference to the Virginia law and the two were arrested, sentenced to a year in prison or 25 years probation if they left the state. Then a couple of ACLU lawyers pick up their case and take it to the supreme court, to set the national law allowing interracial marriage. Those are the facts. Beyond the facts, this film tries to capture the drama and angst that these two experienced over the course of 10 years. From the opening line "I'm pregnant", I picked up on a sense of impending doom. How will this turn out bad? What tragedy will unfold? And this sense was never resolved, instead holding me in tension throughout, as I waited for the shoe to drop. But it never did. This was the nicest, most pleasant depiction of racism that I have seen. Even the ugliness was cordial. And all of this cordiality was sitting on top of the sense of impending doom. I am not sure what the filmmakers were aiming for in terms of tone, but the juxtaposition I experienced rang false. The personal tension came through, but the overt tension was non-existent. Maybe my expectations are unrealistic, the result of my history coming from dramatic films. Maybe this is really how it was.
4 stars (out of 5)