Jeff Nichols’s (Take Shelter, Mud) Loving is an early contender for my most disappointing movie of the year. While there are plenty of other candidates, Loving is the only one likely to be considered for Oscar contention. It likely will get a nomination for Joel Edgerton (Warrior, The Gift), who I think is one of the best actors we currently have but whose performance was not one of the five best of the year (and probably wasn’t even one of the ten best). It likely will also get a nomination for Ruth Negga (Of Mind and Music, Warcraft), whose performance was equally uncompelling. And it could earn Oscars for Nichols (who I also love, but who should get nominated as well as Best Picture).

I don’t think these nominations or others are warranted. In a year that has not been great for movies, the movies that have stood out have been those based on true stories or inspired by true events. Loving is a factually based movie, but just because it is based on a true story doesn’t mean it needs to be a motion picture. This is something hard for me to write because the story told in this movie is important and one that changed the course of history, but that certainly did not make it less boring. It was painfully dull and lacked any emotion that I hoped it made have. It is easier to say that in 2016 because movies like Hacksaw Ridge, Sully, The Birth of a Nation, Free State of Jones, Snowden, Deepwater Horizon, The Finest Hours, and Race were all better movies either based on a true story or inspired by true events and each of these movies had an emotional punch that failed to even

The story is set in Central Point, Virginia, in the year 1958. Interracial marriage is prohibited in the state. But after Richard Loving (Edgerton), a white impregnates his black girlfriend Mildred (Negga). They have clearly been in love before we meet them, but the pregnancy is new. Loving works construction (building houses) for a living, but also makes a decent amount of cash on the side working on the engines of cars that compete in off-road drag race competitions. He saves enough to buy an acre of land close to Mildred’s family as well as his. He promises to build a house for Mildred and the baby and asks her to marry him. Knowing that it is illegal to marry in the state, the pair knows that they will need to travel to Washington DC to get their marriage license.

Family and friends advise the couple not to get married. They can live together in secrecy, and no one will be the wiser. But Richard, a good and honest man, wants to do right by Mildred and marry the woman he is in love with. Long story short, they get married (as is seen if you even read a paragraph synopsis), and things get downhill from there. Virginia (often known to be behind the times) refuses to recognize the marriage and even jails Richard and Mildred. However, charges are dropped if the duo agrees to leave the state of Virginia and never return at the same time.

There is a lot of strife along the way, and it’s not very different than the last few years in America with same-sex marriage. It’s a little embarrassing that we, as a country and as a world society, refuse to let two people who are in love wed. To think that interracial marriage was prohibited just 20 years before I was born is a downright disgrace. I’ve dated many girls who haven’t been white, and those relationships have been so special and meaningful to me that I wouldn’t even be the same person had I not been with these people. I know that there are still those who oppose interracial relationships. However, it seems that those people button their lips a little bit more than those who speak out against same-sex relationships. Honestly, you can’t help who you love, and as long as any two people are of age and the relationship is consensual, then why can’t they be with each other? Just because someone is of a certain race and sex and is only attracted to that same race and the opposite sex doesn’t mean that they are right. I don’t care what history says or what the Bible says. I’m a Christian, and I believe in God. My God is a loving God who wants his people to be happy.

That might be the biggest aside I’ve ever had in a review. This movie lacks the emotion I was certain it would have. Edgerton was thought to be a definite for a Best Actor Oscar nomination (note: he would not have won…this is a race between Denzel Washington and Casey Affleck). I love Edgerton as an actor. He first impressed me in Warrior and has continued to win me over with performances in movies like The Gift. If he does get a nomination, I’ll be happy for him, but this performance wasn’t great. It was solid, and maybe I’m letting my feelings about the movie affect some of its individual components, but just because he portrayed a very different character from who he is as an actor doesn’t automatically qualify him as one of the five best. I

Nichols is a terrific director and screenwriter. Take Shelter is one of the most powerful movies on mental disorders I’ve seen, and both Mud and Shotgun Stories are great. Likewise, midnight Special had its moments. But this is Nichols’s first attempt at a movie based on a true story, and he failed to bring the intensity that he brings in his other films.

Skip Loving and see any of the other movies I have referenced in this review.

Plot 7/10 (important, but maybe more as a documentary or a book…not sure about a major motion picture)
Character Development 7/10
Character Chemistry 7/10
Acting 7/10
Screenplay 6/10 (yawn)
Directing 6/10 (Nichols is allowed a miss after all of his previous hits)
Cinematography 7/10 (the cars felt like the late 1950s…most everything else felt like it was from the 1940s)
Sound 7/10
Hook and Reel 5/10
Universal Relevance 10/10 (this story did change the world)
69%