If the determination of a good film was based completely on the length of time it feels like it takes to the length of time it actually takes, Loving would be a bad movie. This is a SLOW film, but since that was the real point, that’s actually ok. Loving is about making one feel like they are living the life of the Loving’s with all the anxiety and ever expanding long hours that simply come with that. The film’s pacing and feel seem to parallel the frustration that the Loving’s themselves went through. If you haven’t caught on yet, Loving is not a movie of fast pacing. It’s a straightforward, sparse piece of work that needs to be taken on those merits. That’s not much of a surprise. Even Jeff Nichol’s science fiction “action” movie from earlier this year, Midnight Special, (still a year's best contender if you’re wondering) let itself slowly marinate the audience in Nichol’s personal hang-ups and much like that film Loving is more dependent on the performances that he pulls from his actors than any actually exciting action that comes from the film. Nichols has never been about sensationalism, and in the face of overly dramatic dramas of a similar type Nichols simply tells it how it is. Life is frustrating and long, but it’s in full satisfying and that’s the best way to describe Loving. At the end of two hours that feels like five, one gets the notion that they have in fact lived this life and it’s an enlightening experience. It does help to have a little flair though in your movie, and that comes mainly in performance. For all the muting of that Nichols applies to his own film, it’s still not enough to bring down the almost transformative performances at the center of the film. Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga have had some great roles (Negga in Preacher and Edgerton in Nichol’s Midnight Special), but Loving far surpasses their earlier work. The naturalistic performances at the center of this film take one off guard, and since all the actors are on the same page it’s a top rate acting job. Negga and Edgerton are the Loving’s, that’s simply the one thing we can see. This is the type of movie that’s so slow that it’s really exciting to see some familiar actors hanging around the margins of the movie and I damn near jumped out of my seat whenever a Nichols collaborator showed up for a cameo. Loving should be seen, but only for those willing to take the journey. This feels like an almost infuriatingly wronged, slow, life playing out in front of us and while that’s fine in my book others might not be drawn in enough by the performances to really appreciate what is here. I give Loving a 9 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |