Loving

Imagine a time where it was a crime to marry your true love. Imagine a place that would have law against interracial marriages.
The time was 1958 and the place, Virginia, United States, not terribly long nor far away.
The film begins with Mildred Jeter (Ruth Negga) telling her white boyfriend Richard Loving (Joel Edgerton) that she is pregnant. Instead of being angry or something similar, which I was expecting, he merely says good. Fortunately, he proposes a few weeks later, which is mighty nice of him, considering he impregnated her. They live in Virginia but marry in Washington D.C. where they won't have as much red tape, when it is in fact illegal in Virginia, as Mildred is colored. They are arrested, with the police sneaking into Mildred's father's house in the middle of the night to catch them in bed together, which is sick. They plead guilty and are sentenced to one year in prison, beyond harsh, but the judge says that if they leave immediately for Washington, they won't have to spend any time in prison, which is what they do, though they briefly return for the birth of their oldest son.
Fortunately, their lawyer (Bill Camp) takes the bullet for them, telling the judge that he wrongly informed them that they could return. For the next five years, they live in D.C. where Richard finds a job in construction. Though Mildred has family in the area, she doesn't like the lack of trees and grass for the kids to run around in. She eventually takes matters into her own hands and contacts the attorney general, Bobby Kennedy himself to help out her family. The lawyer she is assigned from the ACLU, Bernard Cohen (Nick Kroll) suggests that they return to Virginia where they can get arrested again so they can appeal the sentence. They are hungry to get this case to the Supreme Court.
It isn't until Donald is injured when he is hit by a car that Mildred defies her husband and starts to pack to return.
The family returns where the original court decision is still upheld so the family gains some sort of publicity as they have a Life magazine photo shoot and the case eventually does go to the Supreme Court where it is fortunately overturned. The year is 1968, ten years after they first married.
Richard is finally able to build Mildred he promised her all those years ago.
The plot is simple enough, so this film should be more of a character study than it is. First of all, the film starts when they have already been dating for some time, it would be nice to see how they got together and when they fell in love. At least they did have mostly support, though Richard's mother didn't agree with them marrying, probably because it made his life harder, which it did. Only one of his co-workers had an issue with it. It was only the law standing in their way.
The film didn't have enough scenes with dialogue between the two main characters so they seem disjointed together most of the time with Mildred being warm and open to the reporters while Richard is pretty closed off and tight-lipped, but he does truly love his wife and children. Though each actor is excellent, I wish the script gave them more to do instead of staring intently into the distance while the camera attempts to capture their emotions.
But you do feel like you are being transported to another time in another place, so the film succeeds in that regard, thank goodness, with the brilliant sets and costumes.
I just wish that you got to know Richard and Mildred better. Grade: B+