Over the next decade, the Lovings had three children against the backdrop of the mounting civil rights movement. Mildred, who felt isolated from her family and didn't want her children to grow up surrounded by pavement, wrote a letter to then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who referred her to the ACLU, which took on the Lovings' case.Over the next several years, the couple, guided by a young lawyer named Bernie Cohen, failed on their way up through the courts, until, on June 12, 1967 — now known as Loving Day — the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Virginia's miscegenation laws violated the 14th Amendment. The Lovings, and interracial couples across the state, though not the nation, were free to live as husband and wife.On the eve of its 50th anniversary, this historic tale is getting a refresh on the big screen in a film that's already receiving no minor amount of Oscar buzz. Starring Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga in what looks to go down as her breakout role, Loving was written and directed by Jeff Nichols, a filmmaker capable of drawing grace from dire circumstances, without dampening the seriousness of the subject matter.The movie is subtle, full of quiet power, and showcases finely crafted performances from all but one of its key players. Nick Kroll, as the Lovings' attorney, is doing his best up there — and it's not all bad. But it's difficult to reconcile a face so associated to lowbrow comedic shtick with the heartfelt young lawyer who has doubtlessly experienced his own fair share of discrimination. As Cohen, Kroll is earnest to the point of discomfort, always seemingly on the cusp of breaking character. His scenes take you out of an otherwise seamless narrative. I wish he was on a dimmer switch that could be turned down.But whatever damage done by Kroll is made up for by Edgerton and Negga, whose on-screen chemistry isn't so much electric as it is raw and achingly vulnerable. There are moments in the movie — particularly one in which he tells her that he can protect her, even though they both know that is a lie — where they embrace in the darkness, and Loving becomes painful to look at. Theirs is a quiet kind of love. It has to be. Dialed up, it becomes more dangerous.