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Rent Loving on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Loving takes an understated approach to telling a painful -- and still relevant -- real-life tale, with sensitive performances breathing additional life into a superlative historical drama.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Jeff Nichols

Joel Edgerton

Richard Loving

Mildred Loving

Marton Csokas

Sheriff Brooks

Bernie Cohen

Terri Abney

Garnet Jeter

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Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga in Loving (2016)

The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose arrest for interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia began a legal battle that would end with the Supreme Court's historic 1967 decision. The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose arrest for interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia began a legal battle that would end with the Supreme Court's historic 1967 decision. The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose arrest for interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia began a legal battle that would end with the Supreme Court's historic 1967 decision.

Jeff Nichols
Nancy Buirski
Joel Edgerton
Will Dalton
147 User reviews
240 Critic reviews
79 Metascore
25 wins & 91 nominations total

Drag Race Driver

(as Chris R. Greene)

Shotgun Shack Musician #1
Shotgun Shack Musician #2
Shotgun Shack Musician #3

Lola Loving

Pregnant Girl

Clara the Cashier

Cousin Davis
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Trivia The production filmed outside the actual Virginia jail where the couple had been incarcerated, and inside the actual courthouse where they had pleaded guilty to the 'crime' of being married.
Goofs There's a scene where Mildred Loving is shown washing dishes at home, and the dinnerware appears to be made of Corelle. This brand of dinnerware was not introduced until 1970, and the scene in question would have been mid to late Sixties.

Richard Loving : [from trailer] Tell the judge I love my wife.

Connections Featured in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Martin Short & Steve Martin/Ruth Negga/Common (2016)
Soundtracks Ooh! My Head Written and Performed by Ritchie Valens Published by Sony/ATV by arrangement with Sony Music Licensing and Warner Tamberlane Music Courtesy of Rhino Entertainment Company By arrangement with Warner Music Group Film & TV Licensing

User reviews 147

bob-the-movie-man
Apr 5, 2017
How long is Loving? Powered by Alexa
November 4, 2016 (United States)
United Kingdom
United States
Lawrenceville Airport in Lawrenceville, Virginia, USA (as Richmond Dragway)
Raindog Films
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$9,000,000 (estimated)
Nov 6, 2016
$12,957,265

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Runtime 2 hours 3 minutes

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Jeff Nichols ’ “Loving” is that rare mainstream film that provokes frustration and rage without resorting to monologues or melodrama. The two people at the center of this period drama aren’t prone to long speeches. They’re quiet, conservative, almost shy folk who ended up at the center of one of the most important Supreme Court cases of the ‘60s by virtue of falling in love, getting married and having children. Nichols’ approach is careful, reserved and deeply considerate of the human story he’s trying to tell. There’s no sense of exploitation here—if anything, he’s almost too reverential in his unwillingness to show any flaws. One can sense a director’s understandable trepidation in telling the story of two private people whose life was made very public. What’s most important to Nichols’ vision is how much trust he has in his two leads, and what they give back to him in exchange for that trust.

In 1958 Virginia, a reserved mechanic and construction worker named Richard Loving ( Joel Edgerton ) married his pregnant girlfriend Mildred ( Ruth Negga ). The two drove to Washington, D.C. to make their union official, and Richard bought an acre of land near Mildred’s family home on which he planned to build a house. They hoped that Richard’s mother would deliver their first child, and that they would live in peace in a beautiful, country setting.

In the middle of the night, all of that changed. Officers broke into their home, arresting both Richard and Mildred, stating that their marriage license was no good in Virginia and that they had violated anti-miscegenation laws that stated that mixed-race couples were a violation punishable by jail time. With the assistance of a local attorney ( Bill Camp ), the Lovings were released under one condition: they had to leave the state of Virginia and not return for 25 years. They had to leave their families, their land, the home that they wanted to build, and the future they had seen for themselves. As the world changed with the rise of the civil rights movement, an opportunity arose to use the Lovings' case to finally eliminate the racist laws still destroying lives in part of the country.

From the opening scenes, there’s a tactile, lived-in quality to Nichols’ filmmaking. People are always doing something with their hands—cleaning a kitchen, laying brick for a house, working on a car, etc. And there’s always something in the air, from the sound of crickets to the palpable heat of the Virginia summer. Nothing here feels like a backlot. The production design and direction is so beautifully detailed that people will take it for granted. The Loving home, the cars he works on, the jail cells in which they spend the night, etc.—every element has been carefully considered but not overly highlighted. It is a masterful example of how to use time and place in a film without drawing attention to it as so many award season movies tend to do. There’s nothing flashy here.

And that filmmaking aesthetic applies to the performances as well, two of the best acting turns you’ll see this year. Edgerton, long a fascinating actor, has never been better than he is here, especially as the weight of his situation almost looks like it’s physically pushing him down. His eyes are squinty, his posture bent from hard labor and the concern over the well-being of his wife and family. As the Loving case became more high-profile, Richard Loving had to live with constant fear and the realization that his family was arguably safer if he would just leave them. Rarely has the oppressive, every-minute-of-every-day atmosphere of the impact of racism been captured as it is here. It is like the dust in the air or the crickets at night—always there.

As phenomenal as Edgerton is here, it’s arguably Negga’s movie. It’s her eyes that I will remember, conveying so much inner monologue with just a downward glance or adoring look at her husband. There’s a scene in which Mildred gets some surprising and good news via a phone call and Nichols knows two things. One, he knows that he shouldn’t give Mildred an exclamation or a monologue. Two, he knows not to leave Negga’s face. Her eyes say so much more than dialogue possibly could in this situation. And that speaks to Nichols’ gifts as a filmmaker: one who understands how to use the tools at his disposal more than just writing expository dialogue. We see films every day in which people openly convey how they feel and what they want in ways that don’t reflect the human experience. And yet there’s more reflected about what it means to be a human being in Negga’s eyes than anything I’ve seen on film in a long time. It’s a complex, subtle, quiet performance that gains its power through its believability more than the showiness we’ve come to expect in films like this one.

“Loving” has few twists and turns. It is a rather straightforward drama, and therefore probably won’t be flashy enough for some viewers. And yet it feels urgent and current to today’s drama. Why do some films set a half-century ago feel like history lessons while others feel essential to not just the ‘60s but the ‘10s? Because there’s truth in the story of Richard and Mildred Loving. There’s something about people who just want to be allowed to start a family that is timeless and always will be. And it takes an incredibly talented trio of people in Nichols, Negga and Edgerton to convey that timelessness in a way that feels genuine. When “Loving” ends, one doesn’t feel like they spent time being manipulated by awards bait or melodrama. One appreciates a story well-told and having been allowed a brief, believable window into the lives of Richard and Mildred Loving, two people who changed the country just by falling in love.

This review was originally published during the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2016.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Loving (2016)

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements.

123 minutes

Ruth Negga as Mildred Loving

Joel Edgerton as Richard Loving

Will Dalton as Virgil

Michael Shannon as Grey Villet

Alano Miller as Raymond Green

Marton Csokas as Sheriff Brooks

Sharon Blackwood as Lola Loving

Nick Kroll as Bernie Cohen

Bill Camp as Frank Beazley

Jeff Nichols

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Julie Monroe
David Wingo

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Loving and the Ordinary Love That Made History

Jeff Nichols’s film takes a beautifully restrained look at the couple behind the Supreme Court case that struck down bans on interracial marriage.

The pivotal moment of the new historical drama Loving isn’t the Supreme Court decision that struck down state laws against interracial marriage in 1967. Rather, the big scene comes earlier in the film, when Mildred Loving (Ruth Negga), a black woman driven from her home state for marrying a white man, decides to fight for their right to return. Her grand gesture is simply calling an ACLU lawyer and telling him she’s on board for a legal battle.

Despite its profound subject matter, Loving steers clear of unfairly romanticizing its central, history-changing couple: Mildred and her husband, Richard Loving (Joel Edgerton). So it wisely opts instead to portray their union as powerfully ordinary, their love for each other as a settled fact. Mildred’s act of bravery is her quiet decision to have her ordinariness weaponized in the Supreme Court case, Loving v Virginia , to strike a blow against institutional racism.

But Loving lives in the tiny moments that precede the court’s decision and leans heavily on its actors’ subtle performances: A shudder of fear passes across Mildred’s face when she picks up the phone to call the attorney, and there’s a flicker of triumph once she hangs up. Loving is restrained to a fault, but entirely because it doesn’t want the Lovings’ triumph to feel like anything but a certainty. These were regular folks called upon to be symbols for equality because their union was as mundane as anyone else’s; the power of Loving is precisely in that mundanity.

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The film is the latest in a series of interesting choices from the director Jeff Nichols. Through his career, he’s veered wildly between genres, from the sci-fi road trip Midnight Special to the backwoods coming-of-age drama Mud to the religious-fanaticism thriller Take Shelter. In all these films, however, Nichols takes care never to zoom out too far from his characters and carefully builds to every emotional twist and turn. Loving is no different. It’s a film about a sweeping court case that echoed through American history and undid a crucial strand in the South’s Jim Crow laws, but Nichols’s focus remains trained at all times on the two people at the heart of it.

As Richard Loving, Edgerton has the affect of someone who would prefer never to talk about his feelings. His bond with his wife is unwavering, but Richard isn’t one to acknowledge how unusual their marriage is. Even though he drives Mildred to Washington D.C. for the ceremony, in an effort to circumvent Virginia’s laws, Richard says it’s just to avoid “red tape.” When cops burst into their home and demand to know why Richard is in bed with Mildred, he points wordlessly at their marriage certificate, framed and mounted on the wall. After pleading guilty to miscegenation, the Lovings are ordered to leave Virginia for 25 years. They relocate to nearby Washington, but the film emphasizes the trauma of losing their home and immediate communication with their families.

Though Washington isn’t an unwelcome environment for the Lovings and their children, it’s still not home . Nichols’s camera drinks in the wide open farmland of Virginia every chance it gets, while the scenes in D.C. are almost always confined to the Lovings’ home, often to their kitchen, where Mildred makes the bold move of calling the ACLU lawyer Bernie Cohen (Nick Kroll) and having him pursue their case. Loving is a biopic covering an important moment in American civil rights history, and thus feels like a Oscar contender. But because Nichols avoids stirring speechmaking or teary confrontations, Mildred and Richard feel all the more real, rather than like characters in a sepia-toned history lesson.

Kroll, a stand-up comedian and sketch comedy actor best known for his work on FX sitcom The League and his self-titled Comedy Central show, seems an odd choice at first to play Cohen, and his work in the role is certainly on the broader side. But he gives Loving some energy when it desperately needs it, sowing some necessary tension when he encourages the couple to move back to Virginia in violation of the law so that the case can begin again. He’s the spur Richard and Mildred need to expose themselves to the world, even if it’s much to the intensely private Richard’s dismay.

Viewers barely see a moment of the legal proceedings and hear only snippets of Cohen’s arguments. As the court case progresses, the movie returns to the home the Lovings eventually find for themselves in the Virginia countryside, mostly isolated from racist judgment, but finally free—surrounded on all sides by open air. The power of the film’s final act, where the Lovings finally have created a safe place for themselves and their children , cannot be exaggerated, and so Nichols doesn’t exaggerate. By that point, the director’s subtlety, and Edgerton and Negga’s commitment to their characters’ emotional truth, has already conveyed the true heart of Loving .

Loving (2016) – An Authentic and Moving Romantic Period Drama

Loving (2016) review.

Authentic. Touching. Inspiring. All words describe Loving , an Oscar-nominated period piece that tells the true love story of Richard and Mildred Loving. An interracial couple living in Virginia during the racist times of the 1950s and 1960s, these two have insurmountable obstacles in their path (or so it would seem).

The film opens with Mildred confessing her pregnancy to Richard. Soon after, Richard happily asks Mildred to marry him. Because of the anti-miscegenation laws in Virginia, however, the two must marry elsewhere. They travel to Washington D.C. and get married. Everything should have been okay from that point forward. Unfortunately, someone in their little town has a big mouth and anonymously sends the police after the happy couple. Rudely awakened in their bed, the two get taken down to the precinct. What follows would change American history.

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After their arrest (Mildred receives the worse treatment), the Lovings are sentenced to one year in prison, a sentence suspended only if the two don’t return to Virginia together for 25 years. But Virginia is where their families are and it’s also where Mildred wants to raise a family. The banishment definitely hits hard.

Over the years, including one desperate attempt to sneak into Virginia that does not go well, Mildred smartly turns to the law for help. Civil Rights is picking up across the nation after all. There’s hope in the wind. And she just can’t live in the city much longer. She needs her children to run free.

Loving V. Virginia

Amazingly, and this is true history, Mildred writes a letter about her case to Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy then refers the Loving case to the American Civil Liberties Union. Eventually, the infamous Loving case goes to The Supreme Court. And on June 12, 1967 , the court votes unanimously against Virginia, citing the anti-miscegenation laws violated the fourteenth amendment. The two were finally free! But the movie is so much more than the Loving Vs. Virginia Supreme Court case.

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Honestly, what moved me so immensely about Loving , is that director Jeff Nichols boldly decided to make the movie about the love story rather than the court case. Yes, the court case plays a huge part. But it’s not the focus. Loving isn’t a political film or a courtroom drama, but rather a moving story about two people in love who just wanted to raise a family in peace.

Every piece of dialogue has purpose and emotion. Instead of added vulgarity, Jeff Nichols writes a poetic script that only includes words when necessary. Indeed, Richard Loving barely has any lines at all because he is such a quiet man. Joel Edgerton plays Richard with such authenticity and restrained feeling in the way he moves and quietly speaks that I was truly touched by his performance. While Ruth Negga was rightly nominated for an Oscar for her brilliant performance of Mildred, I am in disbelief that Edgerton didn’t get a similar nomination. This is truly astounding as Edgerton gives one of the best performances I have ever seen. Trust me. He really is that good. He will give you goosebumps. Literally.

The Romance

“Tell the judge I love my wife.” – Richard Loving

And then there is the love story. If not for history, I would have believed that Richard’s surname “Loving” was an intentional choice of name because Richard and Mildred are so loving towards one another. Yes, Loving is a true story but it is also an old-fashioned romance to be seen time and time again. The subtlety, the soft touches, the simplicity of their love. When asked by his lawyer what to say to the Supreme court judge, Richard merely says: “Tell the judge I love my wife.” And you feel the love. It’s beautiful and achingly romantic.

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Overall, I applaud Jeff Nichols’ work here and plan to seek out his other films because Loving moved me. I appreciated the truth in the work (right down to capturing historical moments with class and grace), and the beauty of a film that will stay with me for years to come. Yes, some may find Loving slow moving. Nevertheless, if you enjoy romances that emphasize an intensely deep love, give this film a chance. On a side note for fellow period drama aficionados, Colin Firth was a producer and has some lovely interviews if you watch the bonus material. You can buy the DVD or Rent it on Amazon.

Content Note : Loving is rated PG-13 for thematic elements. The film deals with the theme of racism but there is nothing vulgar or overly violent to note. There are a few suspenseful moments.

Photos: Focus Features

OVERALL RATING

“The stuff that dreams are made of.”

ROMANCE RATING

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.

I have loved none but you.”

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In second grade, Autumn wrote her first story, “The Spinach Monster,” and hasn't stopped writing since. Intrigued by the tales her grandmother told of vampires, witches, and ghosts as a girl, she's always been drawn to the fantastic. Later, Autumn studied English and Creative Writing (continuing her love for classic literature and everything old-fashioned) and graduated with an MA in Children’s Literature and an MS in Library & Information Science from Simmons College. Currently, she co-runs this lovely site and works as a YA Librarian.

Movie Review: Loving (2016)

Howard Schumann
Movie Reviews
One response
--> November 25, 2016

Blacklisted author Millard Lampell’s Cantata “The Lonesome Train” tells us, “Freedom’s a thing that has no ending. It needs to be cared for; it needs defending.” Set in 1958 in Caroline County Virginia, Jeff Nichols’ (“ Midnight Special ”) Loving depicts one defense of freedom that is not as well known as it should be, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Loving vs. Virginia to overturn Virginia’s miscegenation laws barring interracial marriage, a case that led to a nationwide ban on such laws. The case involved the relationship between 18-year-old Mildred Jeter (Ruth Negga, “ Warcraft ”), a black woman and Richard Loving (Joel Edgerton, “ The Gift ”) a 23-year-old Caucasian construction worker. Though the fictional film deals with a racially explosive topic, it is generally low keyed, mainly letting the facial expressions of the taciturn Lovings speak for themselves.

Unable to marry in Virginia, Mildred and Richard drive to Washington, D.C. to marry, but when they return to Virginia, they are arrested by Sheriff Garnett Brooks (Marton Csokas, “ The Equalizer ”) and his deputies who force their way into the Lovings’ house during the night spouting racial clichés. When Mildred tells the Sheriff that she is his wife and points to their marriage certificate hanging on the wall, Brooks tells her, “That’s not good here.” The two are put into separate jail cells until they are bailed out — Richard one day later, Mildred in three days — but the experience is very disturbing. Appearing before Judge Bazile (David Jensen, “Hot Pursuit”) who is privy to inside information about God’s intention informs them that God did not want the races to mix.

Following their counsel Frank Beazley’s (Bill Camp, “ Jason Bourne ”) advice, the Lovings plead guilty to a felony in order to avoid jail time, but as a condition, are forced to leave the state for a period of twenty five years. They move in with friends in Washington, D.C., where they live for several years and have three children, but Mildred misses the open spaces where the children can run and play in the grass and a scary incident when one of her sons is hit by a car compels them to move back to Virginia risking imprisonment. Watching Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, however, inspires Mildred to fight an unjust law and writes to then Attorney General Robert Kennedy who forwards her letter to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

They are contacted by Bernard Cohen (Nick Kroll, “ Knight of Cups ”), and Phil Hirschkop (Jon Bass, “Jane Wants a Boyfriend”), lawyers for the ACLU. Cohen seems a bit out of his league and does not inspire much confidence in Richard who prefers that they don’t make a federal case out of his situation but Mildred is insistent. The ACLU lawyers file a motion on behalf of the Lovings in the Virginia trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the grounds that the violated statutes violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which guarantees equal protection of the laws. When they lose the case as expected, they appeal to the United States Supreme Court but the Lovings choose not to attend.

When asked what he wants to tell the judges, Loving says to tell them that “I love my wife, and it is just unfair that I can’t live with her in Virginia.” It is one of the emotional high points of the film.

Loving is a strong film that sheds light on a little known case that overturned one of the most noxious laws restricting people’s freedom and which led to the recent Supreme Court decision to legalize same sex marriage. In 2010, more than fifteen percent of the marriages occurred between individuals who did not identify themselves as members of the same racial or ethnic group. Edgerton and Negga turn in very convincing performances, but we never have a feeling for what their relationship was really like as all aspects of conflict are avoided. Though Nichols rightfully avoids excessive melodrama or audience manipulation, he may have gone too far in the other direction and its overly restrained nature lessens its impact and affects our intimate connection with the characters.

Tagged: civil rights , couple , court , marriage , racism , true story , Virginia

I am a retired father of two living with my wife in Vancouver, B.C. who has had a lifelong interest in the arts.

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'Movie Review: Loving (2016)' has 1 comment

November 25, 2016 @ 4:46 pm Lance

There is still a ways to go – interracial marriage may be legal now but it is still mostly viewed with contempt.

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Review: 'Loving' May Be Jeff Nichols' Most Moving Film Yet

Note: With Loving in limited release this weekend, we're re-running our review from the TIFF. Jeff Nichols has never been one for outsized drama. It's not that dramatic things don't happen in his movies — on the contrary, his films are full of superpowered kids and apocalyptic dreams and the like. But he often seems less interested in big events than in all the moments in between, the everyday bonds and minute details that make up the textures of everyday life.

In Loving , Nichols applies that same approach to the 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, which struck down anti-miscegenation laws across the country. Aided by awards-worthy performances from Joel Edgerton and especially Ruth Negga , Nichols delivers an intimate drama that feels all the bigger for keeping its scope so resolutely small.

Nearly half a century removed from the landmark Supreme Court decision that bears their name, it's easy to think of the Lovings as simple heroes or abstract concepts. But as portrayed by Nichols, they're normal flesh-and-blood people. Richard is a taciturn builder who works on cars in his free time; Mildred is his adored and adoring girlfriend. They spend their days attending drag races and parties and their evenings having dinner with their families. They seem happy and ease with each other, and dream of someday building a home together.

In other words, Richard and Mildred are like any other rural Virginia couple. The interracial nature of their relationship does not go unnoticed in their hometown, but the occasional snide comment or dirty look is as bad as it gets. Until, that is, she gets pregnant and they decide to marry. Shortly after the courthouse wedding, Richard and Mildred are hauled off to jail for committing the crime of miscegenation. They're bailed out in a matter of days, but it takes years for them to truly win the right to the perfectly ordinary life they've always dreamed of.

The Lovings don't set out to change history. At first, they're only interested in changing their own circumstances — it's not until much later that they acknowledge their legal battle could "help a lot of people," as they so understatedly put it. And even then, it's Mildred quietly leading the charge, while Richard hesitantly follows. Here, too, Richard's attitude is informed less by his principles than by his personal desires. He's a simple man who just wants to take care of his family, and he's genuinely scared by the attention their case attracts.

Edgerton, fresh off of Nichols' Midnight Special , may have found his best role yet in Richard. The character is stoic and withdrawn by nature, but Edgerton communicates everything he needs to with a level gaze or a furrowed brow. Negga is somehow even better as Mildred, finding the grit underneath her grace. There's nothing about her Mildred that feels all that extraordinary, and yet it's impossible to look away whenever Negga is onscreen. And both performances are elevated by their chemistry with each other. The Lovings' love doesn't just feel worn-in, it feels like it's always existed and always will.

Nichols' restraint serves him well when it comes to the Lovings, reframing this monumental victory in the context of its everyday impact. The Lovings manage to eke out a life together despite the laws of their county, but it's compromised in a million little ways. Richard becomes understandably paranoid, panicking when a car trails too closely behind him or when another car drives up to the house too quickly. Mildred tosses and turns in the couple's new home in DC, teetering on the brink of despair when her sister visits with news about the friends and family the Lovings have been forced to leave behind. Through them we understand that the right to marry doesn't stop or start at wedding bells — it's really about the right for the Lovings to live their lives in peace.

Nichols' low-key approach is less helpful in understanding what drives the characters fighting against the Lovings. Numerous people tell Richard he "should know better" than to marry a black woman, and a judge invokes God's law in handing down his sentence to the Lovings, but Nichols generally lets the audience fill in the blanks themselves when it comes to the cultural and societal forces behind that racism. Nor does he offer any real villains, aside perhaps from the sheriff who initially arrests them. As a result, the Lovings feel real and immediate, but the forces allying against them feel faceless and abstract.

But then again, the Lovings don't really care to understand the outrage either. To them, their marriage just their marriage, not a symbol or a political stance. In the end, the verdict in Loving v. Virginia is portrayed almost as a footnote to the everyday lives of Richard and Mildred Loving. They hear about the decision while at home, and then carry on with their day. Nothing has changed, and everything has. The Lovings have been living their lives for years, but they're finally free to do so in a way that they never have before. The real legacy of Loving v. Virginia lies in the fact that we take for granted today what this couple had to fight so hard for.

/Film rating: 9.0 out of 10

The Not So Distant History of Racial Marriage Laws

The excellent new biopic Loving captures how these laws came to an end.

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This article originally appeared in the November 2016 issue of ELLE.

Ah, Virginia—you've come a long way, baby! Speaking of prizewinning commercial slogans, the Old Dominion State has come particularly far since an ad agency in Richmond, the state capital, came up with the tourism mantra "Virginia Is for Lovers," which first ran in Modern Bride in March of 1969. Which is ironic, because what's so incongruous to some ears about what Advertising Age has called one of the "most iconic ad campaigns of the past 50 years" is how oddly it resonates with a Supreme Court decision on marriage that was handed down not two years earlier, on June 12, 1967; it was called Loving v. Virginia —a historic opinion that voided all the anti-miscegenation laws on the books in every state in the union. Behind it lies a deeply romantic and irresistibly human story—which unfolded, as it happens, right outside Richmond, Virginia. And it turns out that writer-director Jeff Nichols, who is not yet 40 years old and is already a national treasure, is just the man to tell it—oh, and how he does so sweetly in his new film, Loving .

Nichols hails from Little Rock, Arkansas, and he has specialized in spinning revelatory fictions set in the American heartland that have consistently earned wide admiration ( Shotgun Stories , Take Shelter , Mud , Midnight Special ). But this time he fixed his eye on the iconic true story of Richard Loving, a white working-class guy, and Mildred Jeter, whom he fell in love with and who happened not to be of the same race. One could waste a lot of superlatives on how Joel Edgerton, an Aussie, and Ruth Negga, of Irish and Ethiopian descent, embody these Southern archetypes, and maybe it all could have ended in artistic disaster were it not for Nichols's unerring handle on his terrain and his people. Richard and Mildred came together, she got pregnant, and so in 1958 they drove north to get married, legally, in Washington, DC. But back home, someone tipped off the sheriff, who wasn't going to abide by this offense against the separation of the races.

Other than a few dire nights spent in the county jail, Loving doesn't dwell on the harshest realities of segregation and Jim Crow. This is above all a moral, not a physical, drama, centered on the exile of the Lovings from family and community by Virginia state law. Much rides on a letter Mildred writes, on a whim of her cousin's, to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. The many legal maneuvers thereafter elude the grasp of the Lovings—a plain, hardworking couple who just want to raise their three kids in peace. They even refuse to attend the climactic Supreme Court arguments; Richard doesn't care to hear the state of Virginia attack his children by arguing that he has no right to bring mixed-race "bastards" into the world. But the world heard his plea—"Tell the judge that I love my wife"—and this, well, loving couple thereby changed everything. The lead performances here are humble and powerful, and the storytelling and camerawork in the service of their story is granular and pointillistic in its unerring detail. This is a tale of common rural people who, simply in order to live their lives, had no choice but to become heroic. And so they did.

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Jeff Nichols

The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose arrest for interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia began a legal battle that would end with the Supreme Court's historic 1967 decision.

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‘Loving’ Aims to Speak Softly to History

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By Logan Hill

Nov. 8, 2016

If history is written by the victors, it is typically filmed by the feel-good crowd pleasers. Whether Hollywood histories chronicle the exploits of brave gladiators, courageous soldiers or noble civilians, they almost always exalt the past in a similar cinematic register, with soaring speeches, swelling strings, sweeping montages, thrilling fights and breathless romances.

When the filmmaker Jeff Nichols ( “Take Shelter,” “Midnight Special” ) was writing the spare, understated script for his new drama, “ Loving ,” he knew that his quiet approach was unusual, particularly for a film about a historical subject so well suited to the fall’s noisy film awards circuit .

In 1958, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, an interracial couple, were married in Washington, D.C. A short time later, back home in Virginia, the pregnant Mrs. Loving and her new husband, a bricklayer, were yanked out of their bed by police enforcing the state’s Racial Integrity Act, which prohibited interracial marriage. They were arrested and ordered by a judge to dissolve their union or leave the state for 25 years. For nearly a decade, the Lovings persevered, until the 1967 Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia, struck down anti-miscegenation laws.

The Lovings’ case remade American history, yet Mr. Nichols described the emotional peak of the film as, “a man coming home and crying on the edge of the bed because he can’t take care of his wife.” He spoke in his Arkansas drawl over lunch at a downtown Manhattan restaurant: “That’s what I’m giving people as a climax? But it’s so true and that’s what’s so crushing. That guy was good at one thing: going out and building a brick wall. That should have been enough.”

The film, starring Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as the couple, has received some of the year’s best reviews for its deliberate restraint. “There are few movies that speak to the American moment as movingly — and with as much idealism,” The New York Times critic Manohla Dargis wrote , adding that the “insistent, quotidian quiet of ‘Loving’ can feel so startling.”

Jeff Nichols on ‘Loving’

The director describes an emotional scene in his film about the interracial couple who struck down anti-miscegenation laws..

In part, that quietness emerged after Mr. Nichols watched Nancy Buirski’s intimate documentary “ The Loving Story ” and hours of archival footage of the couple. He was struck by Mildred’s polite dignity and Richard’s taciturn silence. When he learned that the Lovings opted not to attend the Supreme Court on the day of the ruling but instead receive the news by phone, he said his stripped-down approach came into focus.

“Immediately I saw that end scene, which may or may not represent reality: Richard playing with his kids on the lawn and not saying anything,” Mr. Nichols said. He was aware enough of the danger of such a contrarian choice that he called his producers at Big Beach to warn them, or at least temper their expectations.

“I remember saying, ‘I don’t think this is going to be ‘The Help,’ though ‘The Help’ made a lot of money and got nominated for a lot of Oscars,” he said. “I guess I must have known we were taking a risk in its execution but I never thought there was another way.”

However, when Mr. Nichols was looking for financing, he met one investor who was not so confident. “He’d shown the script to his bigwig boss who said, ‘I just don’t get it. It’s like a courtroom drama without the courtroom,’” he said.

When this financier asked Mr. Nichols if he could “punch it up,” Mr. Nichols said he launched into the sort of rebellious speech that is absent in his film. “What you need to worry about right now is not whether I’m going to punch up this script so you can be involved,” he recalled saying. “What you need to be worried about is how I will ever come back to work with you guys ever again because that is the most simplistic, stupid response I’ve heard.”

Peter Saraf, a Big Beach producer on the film, said that the production company knew what it was getting into. “Jeff’s idea was to tell the story from Richard and Mildred’s point of view and stick to it,” he said. “You can’t commit to that and then say oh, but we need the big courtroom moment with the gavel falling.”

Showtime’s 1996 movie “ Mr. and Mrs. Loving ,” produced with Hallmark Entertainment and starring Timothy Hutton and Lela Rochon, hit more predictable beats and portrayed Richard as more charming and garrulous. But Mr. Edgerton said in a telephone interview that he was drawn to Mr. Nichols’s version of the character, who was, “just shut down and emasculated and weathered by this situation,” he said, and more in keeping with the man in the documentary footage.

“Every year in Hollywood, true stories get made and we feel the need to renovate them, and suit them up,” Mr. Edgerton said, then continued: “That’s legitimate sometimes. But to make Richard more articulate or defiant or to place him in that courtroom would have negated the idea of trying to tell a true story truthfully.”

Or as Ms. Negga put it, when discussing her character on the phone, “It would have been really unfaithful and quite grotesque to have made her any different.”

Though the two stars have been nominated for Gotham Independent Film Awards , one of the many ceremonies that make up Academy Award season, they will not have the explosive reels of other, often more famous, contenders. In today’s market, quiet adult dramas don’t sell themselves, and reviews only go so far. So Mr. Nichols, who notes that he is “not a filmmaker who wants to operate in obscurity,” and his cast have been busy selling the film in a way that might have mortified the Lovings.

“If Mildred were alive now, I don’t think she’d want to do any junkets, any of this nonsense, any of this hoopla,” said Ms. Negga, on a day in which she joked that she had done 782 interviews. “And there’s not much that would have terrified Richard more.”

Mr. Nichols initially objected when the film’s domestic distributor, Focus Features, wanted to use the movie’s few memorable lines in the trailer , including, “We may lose the small battles but win the big war.” (As Mr. Edgerton said, “Mildred didn’t talk much but when she did it was kind of worth quoting.”)

Then he relented.

“This film doesn’t speak with the histrionics of other potential award contenders, but it does fit into the frame of the award season and that’s still how they’re going to cut the trailer,” he said. “The sleight-of-hand is just to get people into the theater. I get it. My hope is that people will go see the movie maybe expecting one thing but maybe pleased it’s something else.”

Mr. Nichols, polishing off his steak and fries along with his fifth of the day’s seven interviews, said that in the thundering horse race of the Oscar season: “‘Loving’ is not even a horse. We are a whole other animal.”

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Loving director Jeff Nichols on making every frame of his historical drama a prison

He tells us why his Loving v. Virginia movie features almost no courtroom scenes.

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Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton as Mildred and Richard Loving.

The new film Loving is as impressive for what it doesn’t do as it is for what it does do.

It takes a historic court case — Loving v. Virginia , which made interracial marriage legal throughout the United States — and tells that story through the point of view of the couple at the case’s center, Richard ( Joel Edgerton ) and Mildred Loving ( Ruth Negga ).

It doesn’t have scenes of lawyers offering grand speeches about the glories of freedom, or scenes of judges considering the weight of the evidence. It’s just a movie about two people whose quiet love changed the country around them.

Loving exists on the outside of a tremendous bubble of emotion. Richard and Mildred love each other, yes, and the state wants to keep them apart. But they also have a quiet faith that everything will work out, that the two of them will make it.

The film hails from director and screenwriter Jeff Nichols , whose rocket ship of a career — including such acclaimed films as Take Shelter , Mud , and his other 2016 release, Midnight Special — turns the American South into fodder for his abundant cinematic imagination. Loving is his most restrained, and best, film yet, opening a vivid window into two ordinary lives that held extraordinary importance.

I talked with Nichols about researching, writing, and shooting Loving — from nurturing the chemistry between Negga and Edgerton on set to making sure his framing always felt a little imprisoning.

Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Hosts an official Academy Screening of LOVING

Todd VanDerWerff

This movie is so dependent on chemistry between two actors. How do you find that in the first place, and how do you nurture it on set?

Jeff Nichols

I have to give all the credit to the actors.

I find them, but chemistry is an incalculable thing. You find two people that you really like and respond to, that fit the spirit of the people who are going to be onscreen, and you place them together and hope for the best.

I can talk about specifics of finding Ruth and casting Joel, but when you're talking about chemistry, you've done the work in the script to make sure the behavior of each character is logical and something actors can understand and wrap their heads around. Everybody's done their work in terms of costume and in terms of set dressing and design, and hair and makeup. The whole thing shows up, and then you're there. These two people have to connect. That's where I lean very heavily on these two actors.

There's a scene where Mildred has been released from jail. She goes home. Richard's not there. He sneaks out that night and sneaks into her room. It's all done in one shot. I remember sitting behind the camera watching this and thinking, there's no flinching. There is no hint of hesitation in their skin or eyes. They are face to face, cheek to cheek. Lips to lips, in this very delicate, intimate scene.

That's the definition of chemistry. I can't take any credit for that other than I just set the table.

What was your approach to filming? Obviously, you want to have the two of them in the same shot as much as possible, but you also really let every moment take its time and have its full effect. How did you consider the framing and pacing?

It's a pretty classic — in terms of classic cinema — stylistic approach. In terms of the way the camera moves, and, chiefly, the way it doesn't move. In terms of the amount of coverage, and the amount of edits you see. Those are all pretty precise.

I very much wanted these people to be trapped inside the frames. I did not, however, want to lose movement. On a film like Mud , I used Steadicam through probably 80 percent of that film, because Steadicam has a little drift to it. It feels free, and it feels fluid, like these two young boys running around this river. That is not the situation that Richard and Mildred are in. They are living in a [metaphorical] prison for a decade. I wanted the camera and its movement to reflect that.

In order to get this rock-solid frame, we set up a lot of dolly tracks, but in order to have movement and not have the dolly tracks seen, we used an offset jib arm with a remote head, so that you could get these very precise moves.

As soon as you set up a dolly, you're changing the orchestration of the shot. Your actors have a movement that you don't want to affect or impact. Then you've got a dolly grip moving a thing. You've got another dolly grip who's on the boom arm , making it go up and down and side to side. Then you've got your [assistant camera] who's off on these focus wheels, that are off of the dolly.

You have all these points of movement that have to work in this beautiful concert with one another. That's why when I've talked to people about directing this film, I'm so proud of it. We reached a level of precision that I haven't had on other films.

Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga play Richard and Mildred Loving in the movie “Loving.”

Limiting your movement in that way certainly adds to the feeling of the characters being trapped, but what did that teach you about your own style and how you work?

I learned that I really like it. I like the process of thinking about these puzzle pieces in advance.

But that's always been the case, to be honest. I'm most pleased when I have a concept for a scene, execute it, and then go in the editing room with the editor and can literally just lay those pieces out, exactly as I saw it in my head, and they fit together. That's something I enjoy.

A lot of filmmakers might hear that and say, "Gosh, that sounds really rigid," but it's not for me. It feels like balance. It feels like control over an understanding of an idea that is important to me.

Certainly you can read about what the Lovings went through, but to see it onscreen really brings home how horrible their treatment could be. In your research, was there anything you reacted viscerally to as something you couldn’t believe they had had to go through?

This isn't necessarily a harrowing thing. This place that they grew up and are from isn't even a town really. It's more of a community. Bowling Green, where they were held and tried, that was the county seat, and the town.

They lived in this little community off to the side, which, from my research, seemed like a very unique place in the Jim Crow South in the ’60s. It was a place where you had racial mingling going on for decades between the black community, the white community, and the Native American community.

The reason it's not just a factoid is because I genuinely believe [that community] provided the space for these two people to fall in love in a sincere way, not as an act of defiance. They just fell in love. Their friends were around and didn't think it was a weird thing. They'd been dating, and other people in different races had been dating around them. Where Richard separated from people is that he actually got married to Mildred.

One thing that’s been much noted about the film is how little time you spend in the courtroom following Loving v. Virginia . What was behind that choice in writing the script?

It's all about point of view. In Mud , I chose the point of view of a 14-year-old boy, and we stayed with him for the majority of the film. It's very similar here. I made a decision that the point-of-view characters would be Richard and Mildred. By definition, they were not involved in the daily intricacies of the court case [the two rarely appeared in court], so it wouldn't make sense to abandon them as characters.

To be honest, it was kind of like a sweater with a thread that you're pulling. That court case is so interesting, and those lawyers are so interesting. If you pull too much of it, then the whole thing is going to unravel and you're going to be covered in yarn. And that's going to be your movie.

I was far more interested in witnessing the court case from the Lovings’ point of view, which was at a distance. Think about how scary it must have been, that your fate is in a process that you're completely unaccustomed to.

So the audience’s experience watching the film is from [the Lovings’] point of view, and seeing it through their experience, rather than a typical cinematic one, which would be a courtroom drama. One doesn't have anything to do with the other.

Loving is playing in limited release right now. It will expand through out the country in the weeks to come.

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Virginia Was Not Always For Lovers

Loving is a reminder of how far we have, & have not, come, more from movies, r29 original series.

Here's The History Behind 'Loving,' A New Film About A Major Civil Rights Victory

Senior Culture Reporter, HuffPost

WASHINGTON ― “Loving,” a film from writer-director Jeff Nichols (”Midnight Special,” “Take Shelter”) that opens in theaters on Friday, tells the story of Loving v. Virginia, the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case that overturned state bans on interracial marriage.

Instead of dramatic courtroom scenes or thunderous monologues, the film focuses on the couple at the center of the case, Richard and Mildred Loving, depicting the impact of their prolonged legal battle on their daily lives and celebrating their love story and unwavering resolve.

In 1958, Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Jeter, a black woman, drove north from their home in Virginia to Washington, D.C., to get married. Upon returning to Virginia, they were dragged out of bed and arrested by the police. The Lovings’ marriage was not legally valid due to the state’s law barring interracial marriage. The ensuing legal battle upended the lives of the Lovings and their three children for almost a decade.

The film is beautiful in its restraint, anchored by tender moments in the couple’s life. Actors Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga bring a quiet intensity to their magnificent performances as Richard and Mildred. But by grounding itself in their love story, the film somewhat understates the significance of the Lovings’ case. Loving v. Virginia was and remains an important political and historical landmark, knocking down a major pillar of Jim Crow segregation and, more recently, serving as precedent in the fight to legalize same-sex marriage.

In one fell swoop, the court’s 1967 ruling , which concluded that Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, invalidated all state laws that banned interracial marriage.

These anti-miscegenation laws, as they were known, represented one of the last existing formal mechanisms for segregation, according to Virginia Tech historian Peter Wallenstein, who has written two books on the Loving case. While many states that once had such laws had repealed them by the 1960s, interracial marriage bans remained on the books in almost the entire South, even after Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and the wave of civil rights legislation in the 1960s addressed most of the major Jim Crow laws that imposed segregation.

“The ‘64 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of ‘65 really had taken out all the formal support systems for Jim Crow segregation,” Wallenstein told the Huffington Post. “The one remaining pillar in that whole edifice ― for decades, generations, centuries ― the one remaining one was marriage. That was the last to go, and it is, of course, three years after the Civil Rights Act.”

As the film shows, the civil rights movement was what catalyzed Mildred Loving to seek legal action. She wrote to then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who referred to her to the American Civil Liberties Union. Two of the organization’s lawyers ultimately took on the case and represented the Lovings before the high court.

“If the Lovings hadn’t come along, if Mrs. Loving hadn’t written that letter and then followed up, then we wouldn’t have a story to be talking about.” - Peter Wallenstein, Virginia Tech historian

Wallenstein noted that the fundamental nature of marriage may have been a major reason why it was one of the last remaining areas of formal segregation.

“The bottom line is simply this: if white supremacy mandates maintaining a system that never accepts the prospect of blacks and whites meeting together on terms of equality, if ever there was a place where you might find just that, is marriage and the family,” he said.

Indeed, one of the arguments that the state of Virginia made in justifying the ban on interracial marriage involved labeling mixed-race children as “bastards” and portraying them as harmful to society.

In its unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court determined that marriage is “fundamental to our very existence and survival.” Under the 14th Amendment, “the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations,” Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the opinion . “Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.”

Beyond marriage, the Loving case also had important legal ramifications for property and child custody cases involving interracial couples, Wallenstein noted.

Over the last two decades, the historic ruling has taken on a new resonance, as many courts applied it to same-sex marriage cases. In rulings in favor of LGBTQ couples, judges used the same broad language and reasoning of the Loving case, and the phrase “freedom to marry” became a rallying call for gay marriage activists.

In last year’s Obergefell v. Hodges , the Supreme Court case which invalidated state bans on gay marriage, Justice Anthony Kennedy cited Loving v. Virginia several times in his majority opinion , noting that the case had established an “abiding connection between marriage and liberty.”

A monument in Bowling Green, Virginia, honors the Lovings.

But even without the historical context, the film works effectively as a character study of the Lovings, allowing viewers to become intimately acquainted with them. Featuring warm scenes of their family life and devotion to one another, the film is deeply reverential toward the Lovings. As several suspenseful scenes portray, they lived in constant fear of prosecution in their home state, where it was a felony for two people of different races to live together.

“The love story is framed by this horror show,” Wallenstein said. “So on the one hand, it’s just beautiful. On the other hand, it’s just horrific. And the focus here is how one threatens the other.”

While they largely shied away from the spotlight, the Lovings came to understand the high stakes of their fight, particularly Mildred, who was more enterprising and outpoken than the taciturn Richard.

“This is a case that was not foreordained. If the Lovings hadn’t come along, if Mrs. Loving hadn’t written that letter and then followed up, then we wouldn’t have a story to be talking about,” Wallenstein said. “Somewhere, sometime, something like it would have happened, but it couldn’t have been then. It had to have been later.”

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Movie Review: Loving

Nichols makes it clear that the couple — masterfully played by Joel Edgerton (Richard Loving) and Ruth Negga (Mildred Loving) — were simple, everyday people who did not set out to make history. Through a slow, deliberate script that highlights the modest interactions between the two lovers, viewers come to understand that the couple wanted nothing more than to love one another without living in constant fear. With “Loving,” Nichols has created a steady, unembellished and sensitive film. Events and conversations are unhurried, and the silence often hangs heavy. It contradicts the tendency for many modern movies to rush from scene to scene, emotion to emotion for fear of losing the audience’s attention. This film’s pace is a large part of what makes it so captivating.

Richard Loving, in particular, mirrors the slow pace of the movie. Edgerton sinks deeply into his quiet character, embodying a simple countryman with tobacco-stained teeth, a furrowed brow, a modest job and a deep affection for the woman he loves. In moments when we would expect him to erupt in fury or celebration, like in the opening scene when Mildred tells him that she’s pregnant, we see his eyes fall and a retreat into his thoughts. This silence in the face of conflict or excitement shows a different and misunderstood side of masculinity.

For those who are not familiar with the type of man that Richard Loving was — uneducated, naturally withdrawn and focused on his family — it is easy to presume that his representation in the film is dull. However, Edgerton not only perfectly embodies the simplicity of who Richard Loving was and the life he lived but also highlights the effortless chemistry between him and Negga.

When she is onscreen, Negga commands the entire scene. Although she is quiet, Mildred Loving’s dignity and strength define her character, especially in moments of weakness. It is Negga who, after being driven out of her home state to live in a crowded, miserable part of D.C. with Richard and their three children, finds it within herself to seek change. Motivated by a civil rights march led by Martin Luther King, Jr., that she briefly sees on the television one day, she writes a letter to Robert Kennedy, who forwards it to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Where “Loving” falls short is its refusal to expand beyond a narrow scope of emotion. Although the film is tender and sweet in its simplicity, the outrage and frustration that the Loving family undoubtedly felt is completely absent. To put it simply, the film’s style feels much too restrained. Nichols leaves it up to the audience to fill in the blanks with their understanding of the cultural and societal forces behind the racism that infiltrates the life of the Lovings.

The strengths and the weaknesses of “Loving” go hand-in-hand. The director’s careful casting of lesser-known actors and a script full of subtleties provide an endearing testament to the simple people the story represents, but it also leaves some major holes. The film almost entirely skips over the Supreme Court trial, except for the opening remarks of the couple’s lawyers, Bernie Cohen (Nick Kroll) and Phil Hirschkop (Jon Bass).

The Lovings refused to attend the trial in order to preserve the dignity of their family and learned of the verdict via telephone. The film’s reaction to the news can either be disappointing or beautiful. The couple simply carries on with their lives, as if the decision is just a simple validation of something they have known all along. Still, there is beauty and inspiration in this ending, as it cements the film as an exploration of the uncomplicated love between two people who simply longed to be together.

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Jo Lawton • Dec 3, 2016 at 12:32 pm

Well-analyzed and very well written!

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The loving story, common sense media reviewers.

Love story that led to Supreme Court case; racist language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Documentary tells the story of the Loving family,

While they were not Civil Rights activists, Richar

Archival film footage of a Ku Klux Klan member giv

Much of the movie features archival film footage o

Positive Messages

Documentary tells the story of the Loving family, an interracial couple who went to court to have their marriage recognized in Virginia and any other state that had banned interracial marriages, taking their case all the way to the Supreme Court in 1967.

Positive Role Models

While they were not Civil Rights activists, Richard and Mildred Loving had the courage of their love for each other to stand up against a racist law in Virginia that made it illegal for interracial couples to get married in the state, a crime punishable by prison time. They were forced into exile outside of Virginia, and faced hostility as well as the challenges of ordinary citizens reluctantly placed in the national spotlight.

Archival film footage of a Ku Klux Klan member giving an angry speech in which he uses the "N" word, and calls the kids of mixed-race parentage "mongrels" and "half-breeds." Archival footage of Southern white men speaking condescendingly of their relationships with the African Americans in their community, use the "N" word repeatedly. Racist term to describe Native Americans.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Much of the movie features archival film footage of the Loving Family at their home in rural Virginia, where Richard and Mildred are often shown smoking cigarettes.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Loving Story is a 2011 documentary about an interracial married couple's fight to overturn state bans on interracial marriage, leading to a historic Supreme Court case. There's archival footage of a KKK member giving a speech in which he uses the "N" word, and refers to the kids of interracial couples as "half-breeds" and "mongrels." Archival footage of Southern white men speaking condescendingly of the African Americans in their communities while using the "N" word to refer to them. Racist term used to describe Native Americans. There's cigarette smoking throughout. This documentary relies on archival footage and contemporary interview footage with the lawyers who defended the Lovings to show how racism had become part of the laws of most states and was interpreted as such by state judges who affirmed these racist views in their judgments. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

THE LOVING STORY is a documentary that tells the story of the landmark Supreme Court case, Loving v Virginia, that overturned state laws banning interracial marriage. It tells the story of Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Loving, who was part African American and part Native American, a couple from rural Virginia who fell in love and got married in Washington, DC in 1958. Shortly after returning to their home, local police raided the home and entered their bedroom. The police informed them that their marriage wasn't recognized in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and was a violation of the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924." While they were sentenced to a year in prison, the sentence was suspended on the condition that they not return to Virginia as husband and wife. Exiled in Washington, DC, Mildred, homesick and unhappy with city life, wrote a letter to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who referred them to the American Civil Liberties Union. Two ACLU lawyers, Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, agreed to take their case. While unable to overturn their verdict while in Virginia courts where judges rendered judgments based on the viewpoint that God intended for the races to be separate because he put the different races on different continents, these verdicts opened up the possibility of taking the case to the Supreme Court. In 1967, nine years after their marriage, the Court ruled unanimously in the Lovings' favor, overturning the racist state laws banning interracial marriages that existed in 17 states, mostly in the South.

Is It Any Good?

While the legal dramas that unfold in this documentary are certainly compelling, it's the Lovings themselves who remain in the viewers' memories. The archival footage of Richard and Mildred Loving in their home with their kids in rural Virginia inherently reveals the deep love they held for each other. It's a profound love that's enough to override their natural disinclination to be thrust into the national spotlight, a love that communicates so much more to the viewer than the legalese of Loving v Virginia, the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case that, finally, overturned racist state laws that made interracial marriage a crime.

While the story of the Loving v Virginia case is an interesting story in and of itself, The Loving Story spends just as much time on the love Richard and Mildred had for each other, and by doing so, it reminds us of how ordinary citizens can bring about change simply by acting on the courage of their desires for basic freedoms. The Lovings were not gifted orators, weren't protesting on the streets. They were a married couple very much in love who wanted the right to be married in their own home state in their community, with their families and friends. The Loving Story beautifully renders this aspect of this historic moment in Civil Rights, and these moments of pure affection that they share while caught on camera is revealed to be so much more powerful than the screaming of racists and a judicial system that codified and upheld this racism for far too long.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the Lovings and their struggles to be married in a state where interracial marriage was a crime punishable by prison time. What did you learn? What surprised you?

What were your takeaways about the Lovings? Did they seem like they wanted to be central actors in a landmark civil rights case, or did they seem more like two ordinary citizens finding the courage to have their love affirmed and legal in their home state, where interracial marriages were illegal?

How did The Loving Story show the prevailing attitudes of many Americans toward interracial marriages in the 1950s and 60s? Have attitudes changed? Why or why not?

Movie Details

On DVD or streaming : April 15, 2011
Cast : Jane Alexander
Director : Nancy Buirski
Inclusion Information : Female directors
Studio : Augusta Films
Genre : Documentary
Topics : History
Character Strengths : Courage
Run time : 77 minutes
MPAA rating : NR
Last updated : February 25, 2023

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Loving v. Virginia

By: History.com Editors

Updated: December 14, 2022 | Original: November 17, 2017

Loving v Virginia, Richard and Mildred Loving

Loving v. Virginia was a Supreme Court case that struck down state laws banning interracial marriage in the United States. The plaintiffs in the case were Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and Black woman whose marriage was deemed illegal according to Virginia state law. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Lovings appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that so-called “anti-miscegenation” statutes were unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. The decision is often cited as a watershed moment in the dismantling of “Jim Crow” race laws.

What Is Miscegenation?

The Loving case was a challenge to centuries of American laws banning miscegenation, i.e., any marriage or interbreeding among different races. Restrictions on miscegenation existed as early as the colonial era, and of the 50 U.S. states, all but nine states had a law against the practice at some point in their history.

Early attempts to dispute race-based marriage bans in court met with little success. One of the first and most noteworthy cases was 1883’s Pace v. Alabama , in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an Alabama anti-miscegenation law was constitutional because it punished Black people and white people equally. In 1888, meanwhile, the high court ruled that states had the authority to regulate marriage.

By the 1950s, more than half the states in the Union—including every state in the South—still had laws restricting marriage by racial classifications. In Virginia , interracial marriage was illegal under 1924’s Racial Integrity Act . Those who violated the law risked anywhere from one to five years in a state penitentiary.

Richard and Mildred Loving

The central figures in Loving v. Virginia were Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter, a couple from the town of Central Point in Caroline County, Virginia.

Richard, a white construction worker, and Mildred, a woman of mixed Black and Native American ancestry, were longtime friends who had fallen in love. In June 1958, they exchanged wedding vows in Washington, D.C. , where interracial marriage was legal, and then returned home to Virginia.

On July 11, 1958, just five weeks after their wedding, the Lovings were woken in their bed at about 2:00 a.m. and arrested by the local sheriff. Richard and Mildred were indicted on charges of violating Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law, which deemed interracial marriages a felony.

When the couple pleaded guilty the following year, Judge Leon M. Bazile sentenced them to one year in prison, but suspended the sentence on the condition that they would leave Virginia and not return together for a period of 25 years.

Richard and Mildred Loving’s Children

Following their court case, the Lovings were forced to leave Virginia and relocate to Washington, D.C. The couple lived in exile in the nation’s capital for several years and raised three children—sons Sidney and Donald and a daughter, Peggy—but they longed to return to their hometown.

In 1963, a desperate Mildred Loving wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy asking for assistance. Kennedy referred the Lovings to the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ), which agreed to take their case.

The Lovings began their legal battle in November 1963. With the aid of Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, two ACLU young lawyers, the couple filed a motion asking for Judge Bazile to vacate their conviction and set aside their sentences.

When Bazile refused, Cohen and Hirschkop took the case to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, which also upheld the original ruling. Following another appeal, the case made its way to the United States Supreme Court in April 1967.

During oral arguments before the Supreme Court, Virginia’s Assistant Attorney General Robert D. McIlwaine III defended the constitutionality of his state’s anti-miscegenation law and compared it to similar regulations against incest and polygamy. Cohen and Hirschkop, meanwhile, argued the Virginia statute was illegal under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution , which guarantees all citizens due process and equal protection under the law.

During one exchange, Hirschkop stated that Virginia’s interracial marriage law and others like it were rooted in racism and white supremacy. “These are not health and welfare laws,” he argued. “These are slavery laws, pure and simple.”

Supreme Court Ruling

The Supreme Court announced its ruling in Loving v. Virginia on June 12, 1967. In a unanimous decision, the justices found that Virginia’s interracial marriage law violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

“Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the state,” Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote.

The landmark ruling not only overturned the Lovings’ 1958 criminal conviction, it also struck down existing laws against interracial marriage in 16 U.S. states including Virginia.

What Happened to the Lovings?

The Lovings had lived secretly on a Virginia farm for much of their legal battle, but after the Supreme Court decision, they returned to the town of Central Point to raise their three children.

Richard Loving was killed in 1975 when a drunk driver in Caroline County struck the couple’s car. Mildred survived the crash and went on to spend the rest of her life in Central Point. She died in 2008, having never remarried.

Legacy of Loving v. Virginia

Loving v. Virginia is considered one of the most significant legal decisions of the civil rights era . By declaring Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law unconstitutional, the Supreme Court ended prohibitions on interracial marriage and dealt a major blow to segregation .

Despite the court’s decision, however, some states were slow to alter their laws. The last state to officially accept the ruling was Alabama, which only removed an anti-miscegenation statute from its state constitution in 2000.

In addition to its implications for interracial marriage, Loving v. Virginia was also invoked in subsequent court cases concerning same-sex marriage.

In 2015, for example, Justice Anthony Kennedy cited the Loving case in his opinion on the Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges , which legalized gay marriage across the United States.

On December 13, 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law. The law requires that individual states recognize same-sex and interracial marriages that were lawfully performed in other states.

June 12—the anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision—is now commemorated each year as “Loving Day,” a holiday celebrating multiracial families.

Tell the Court I Love My Wife: Race, Marriage, and Law—an American History. By Peter Wallenstein. Loving v. Virginia. Encyclopedia Virginia. Loving v. Virginia. Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Law and the Politics of Marriage: Loving v. Virginia After 30 Years Introduction. Robert A. Destro. What You Didn’t Know About Loving v. Virginia. Time Magazine.

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IMAGES

'Loving' and Virginia: a timeline of mixed-race marriage
Loving v. Virginia: 4 Lessons from the Film About the Landmark Supreme
Watch Loving v. Virginia Clip
Loving v. Virginia was decided 50 years ago. This HBO documentary
IHS Roundtable: Loving v. Virginia After 50 Years
Nursing Clio Revisiting Loving v. Virginia (1967): A Review of Loving

VIDEO

Interview of Loving v. Virginia
Bernard Cohen at Reston Premier of "The Loving Story"
The Peasants Movie Review
Senior Division Finalists
Loving v. Virginia
MIXED RACE Couple REACTS to LOVING (Loving vs Virginia)

COMMENTS

Loving
Sep 8, 2023. Oct 17, 2022. Rated: 4/5 • Aug 23, 2022. Interracial couple Richard and Mildred Loving fell in love and were married in 1958. They grew up in Central Point, a small town in Virginia ...
Loving (2016)
Loving: Directed by Jeff Nichols. With Ruth Negga, Joel Edgerton, Will Dalton, Dean Mumford. The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose arrest for interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia began a legal battle that would end with the Supreme Court's historic 1967 decision.
Loving movie review & film summary (2016)
Jeff Nichols ' "Loving" is that rare mainstream film that provokes frustration and rage without resorting to monologues or melodrama. The two people at the center of this period drama aren't prone to long speeches. They're quiet, conservative, almost shy folk who ended up at the center of one of the most important Supreme Court cases ...
Review: 'Loving' and the Ordinary Love That Made History
The pivotal moment of the new historical drama Loving isn't the Supreme Court decision that struck down state laws against interracial marriage in 1967. Rather, the big scene comes earlier in ...
Loving (2016 film)
Loving is a 2016 American biographical romantic drama film which tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the plaintiffs in the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court (the Warren Court) decision Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated state laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The film was produced by Big Beach and Raindog Films, and distributed by Focus Features. ...
Loving (2016)
But the movie is so much more than the Loving Vs. Virginia Supreme Court case. RELATED | The Dressmaker (2015) Film Review - A Glamorous Revenge Comedy for Period Drama Fans. Honestly, what moved me so immensely about Loving, is that director Jeff Nichols boldly decided to make the movie about the love story rather than the court case. Yes ...
Movie Review: Loving (2016)
Critical Movie Critic Rating: 4. Movie Review: Allied (2016) Movie Review: Bleed for This (2016) Tagged: civil rights, couple, court, marriage, racism, true story, Virginia. Movie review of Loving (2016) by The Critical Movie Critics | Drama in which an interracial couple is sentenced to prison in Virginia in 1958 for getting married.
Review: 'Loving' May Be Jeff Nichols' Most Moving Film Yet
In Loving, Nichols applies that same approach to the 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v.Virginia, which struck down anti-miscegenation laws across the country. Aided by awards-worthy performances ...
"Loving" (2016) Review
Loving v. Virginia. Writer, director, and filmmaker Jeff Nichols (Mud, Take Shelter) tackles the story of Richard and Mildred Loving (played by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga).In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor in the case of Loving v.Virginia, which broke open the possibility of interracial marriage all across the United States.
Loving Film Review
Movies & TV 2022. The Not So Distant History of Racial Marriage Laws ... 1967; it was called Loving v. Virginia—a historic opinion that voided all the anti-miscegenation laws on the books in ...
Review: In 'Loving,' They Loved. A Segregated Virginia Did Not Love
It was, the movie insists, the absolute ordinariness of their love that defined them, and that made the fight for it into an indelible story of this country. "Loving" is rated PG-13 (Parents ...
Loving (2016)
The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose arrest for interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia began a legal battle that would end with the Supreme Court's historic 1967 decision ...
'Loving' Aims to Speak Softly to History
In 1958, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, an interracial couple, were married in Washington, D.C. A short time later, back home in Virginia, the pregnant Mrs. Loving and her new husband, a ...
Loving director Jeff Nichols on making every frame of his ...
Loving director Jeff Nichols on making every frame of his historical drama a prison. He tells us why his Loving v. Virginia movie features almost no courtroom scenes. By Emily St. James @emilyvdw ...
Loving Movie Review, Interracial Marriage Powerful Film
Hopefully, it will not take 50 years to make a film about that groundbreaking legislative shift that does justice to the story in the same was that Loving does for Loving v. Virginia. The truth is ...
Here's The History Behind 'Loving,' A New Film About A Major ...
These anti-miscegenation laws, as they were known, represented one of the last existing formal mechanisms for segregation, according to Virginia Tech historian Peter Wallenstein, who has written two books on the Loving case. While many states that once had such laws had repealed them by the 1960s, interracial marriage bans remained on the books in almost the entire South, even after Brown v.
Movie Review: Loving
Writer and director Jeff Nichols' historical drama "Loving" tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the plaintiffs in the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated state laws prohibiting interracial marriage. After being arrested and sentenced to prison in Virginia in 1958, the couple was exiled to Washington, D.C., where they...
Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Beginning in 2013, the decision was cited as precedent in U.S. federal court decisions ruling that restrictions on same-sex marriage in ...
The Loving Story Movie Review
THE LOVING STORY is a documentary that tells the story of the landmark Supreme Court case, Loving v Virginia, that overturned state laws banning interracial marriage. It tells the story of Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Loving, who was part African American and part Native American, a couple from rural Virginia who fell in love and got married in Washington, DC in 1958.
Loving v. Virginia: 1967 & Supreme Court Case
Loving v. Virginia was a 1967 Supreme Court case in which the court's ruling struck down state laws banning interracial marriage throughout the United States.
Loving v. Virginia
Facts of the case. In 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia. The Lovings returned to Virginia shortly thereafter. The couple was then charged with violating the state's antimiscegenation statute, which banned inter-racial marriages.
LOVING
From acclaimed writer/director Jeff Nichols, "Loving" celebrates the real-life courage and commitment of an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred Loving (J...
Loving v. Virginia
Virginia (1967) (Apr. 11, 2024) Loving v. Virginia, legal case, decided on June 12, 1967, in which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously (9-0) struck down state antimiscegenation statutes in Virginia as unconstitutional under the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Marriage license for Richard Loving and Mildred ...

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