Focus Features has unveiled a new trailer for Mud and Midnight Special writer/director Jeff Nichols’ interracial marriage drama Loving. Based on a true story, the film stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as Richard and Mildred Loving, a Virginia couple who went up to Washington D.C. to get married, then faced intense discrimination in their home state given that interracial marriage was against the law at that time. They were subsequently forced to leave the state (and their families) and never return, but eventually launched a lawsuit against the state (at the behest of the ACLU) that resulted in the Supreme Court affirming interracial marriage as a right guaranteed by federal law.
The film debuted at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, but it just played at the Toronto International Film Festival to positive reviews. I saw the film myself in Toronto (read my full review here), and it’s an incredibly restrained, quiet, and mighty effective drama that keeps the focus on who the Lovings are as human beings instead of going “big-picture.” By taking this specific approach to the story, Nichols manages to make Loving a universal film about love, buoyed by an absolutely tremendous performance by Negga as the soft-spoken yet ambitious Mildred Loving. The film even takes time to delve into issues like the role of women in the 1960s and crises of masculinity, which makes it all the more rich a viewing experience.
This new trailer does a swell job of encapsulating the tone and story of the film, which stands as one of the year’s very best. Check out the new Loving trailer for yourself below. The film also stars Nick Kroll, Martin Csokas, Bill Camp, and Michael Shannon. Loving opens in theaters on November 4th.
Here's the official synopsis for Loving:
From acclaimed writer/director Jeff Nichols, “Loving” celebrates the real-life courage and commitment of an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred Loving (Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga), who married and then spent the next nine years fighting for the right to live as a family in their hometown. Their civil rights case, Loving v. Virginia, went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in 1967 reaffirmed the very foundation of the right to marry – and their love story has become an inspiration to couples ever since.
