Photo: ‘Loving’/Focus Features
The words ‘critically acclaimed drama’ come with certain expectations. The usual Academy darling contenders promise intense plots with high stakes, weepy declarations of love, and the ‘Oscar speech’ that comes right after our tragic protagonist’s lowest point. You know the one; where the hero declares their bravery and self-worth to the world before taking it on and winning in an epic show of fireworks and triumphant orchestral score.
Loving contains none of those tropes and, frankly, it’s refreshing. The film, both written and directed by Nichols, swerves away from the more dramatic and well-known events of the Civil Rights movement to focus on Richard and Mildred Loving, a mixed-race couple who, after being exiled from their home in Virginia, had their marriage legalised by the Supreme Court in a landmark case. Ruth Negga, who played the media-shy Mildred, would go on to be nominated for Best Actress at the 2017 Academy Awards, with both leads being nominated at the 2017 Golden Globes, and the film being nominated for the Palme d‘Or at Cannes Film Festival in 2016.