By Travis Johnson
Writer/director Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Midnight Special) is in the rare position of having never made a bad film, and his impressive streak looks set to continue with the real-life drama, Loving.
Set in ’50s/’60s Virginia, Loving is the story of Richard (Joel Edgerton) and Mildred (Ruth Negga) Loving, an interracial couple who were imprisoned after marrying in defiance of the state’s strict anti-miscegenation laws. The pair sued the state for the right to marry, a proceeding that eventually hit the Supreme Court in 1967.
There’s a massive political element to Loving, of course, and given the current state of race relations in America, this kind of story is perhaps more pertinent now than ever before, but Nichols maintains that it’s the human element, rather than the political, that is always at the forefront for him. “My approach to Midnight Special was exactly the same as my approach to Loving, which was to find the central feeling, or emotion, and try to connect it to the audience. The approach is always the same I’m just trying to make the behaviour as honest as I can, and make the emotion land at some point.”
Loving is in Australian cinemas from January, 2017.
