There's a dramatic relevance in the fact that Richard works in construction: Nichols returns again and again to images of him slathering concrete blocks with mortar and patently adding the next layer, building up walls one slab at a time. That's what Loving's story feels like as a whole: a slow accretion of incident and development over time, inevitably and without major drama. The approach, much like the similar take on history in Clint Eastwood's recent Sully, is respectful, patient, and adult. Both films lack the big musical cues and screaming Oscar-bait speeches that usually dot prestige dramas about discrimination, injustice, and major historical shifts. They both feel like history as it actually happens: unrushed, messy, and lacking in thematic statements and neatly delivered morals. But like Sully, Loving can be too respectful, to the point of feeling sleepy and detached. They're both stolid movies that skip hyperbole and histrionics, but don't replace those things with an alternate form of energy.

Instead, Loving finds an admirable portrait of a long-term couple living an ordinary life, even while their names are being used for extraordinary purposes. Nichols finds the irony and faint ludicrousness of their situation in various ways, as when Mildred's sister bitterly scolds Richard for marrying his pregnant girlfriend. In any other movie, their marriage would be a symbol of their mutual love and devotion; here, a handful of characters tell him he was just being foolish, selfish, and shortsighted by not keeping Mildred as his girl on the side. It's hard for a modern audience to follow the logic, just as it's hard to accept the local sheriff delivering a polemic on how Richard's upbringing among black workers has resulted in "blood [that] doesn't know what it wants to be." It's one thing to see antiquated ideas pilloried on-screen; it's another to see ideas this alien being teased out through example, and presented as truth. Sometimes it's just hard to relate to Loving, which makes it all the more fascinating.