Joel Edgerton’s Loving already earning Oscars buzz at Cannes

IT IS early days but already Joel Edgerton’s Loving is earning Oscars buzz after his film debuted at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.

Joel Edgerton and his co-star in Loving Ruth Negga are joined by the film’s director Jeff Nichols at a screening of the film "Loving" at the 69th Cannes Film Festival. Picture: AFP

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IT IS early days but already Joel Edgerton’s Loving is earning Oscars buzz after his film debuted at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.

Film reviewers raved about the Australian’s performance in the Jeff Nichols’ directed film that tells the true story of an interracial couple in the 1950s.

Ruth Negga plays Edgerton’s on screen wife in the film based on the 1967 US Supreme Court case involving Richard and Mildred Loving.

There’s an early Oscars buzz for Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga’s new film Loving.

“Though it will inevitably factor heavily in year-end Oscar conversations, Nichols’ film is seemingly less interested in its own glory than in representing what’s right, and though it features two of the best American performances of the past several years, from Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga (neither of whom are American, hailing from Australia and Ethiopia, respectively), its emotional impact derives precisely from how understated they are,” Variety reported.

It was a multinational production featuring US director Jeff Nichols, Irish-Ethiopian actress Ruth Negga and Australian actor Joel Edgerton.

Other film critics were equally as praising.

“Edgerton is one of the more dynamic movie actors of his generation, and brings true commitment to his zipped-up, laconic portrayal of Richard, a man whose passion for his wife and family ran deep and quiet,” Vanity Fair wrote.

“But there’s perhaps a little too much technique being applied here — in such an understated movie, Edgerton’s Ennis Del Mar-esque clampedness can come across overly mannered. Negga gives a more fluid performance — as Mildred gradually moves toward the centre of the movie, Negga holds it with palpable decency and warmth. She’s given only a few sturdy notes to play — fear of the law, familial love, a yearning to return home and a hope for a resolution — but she adds shading and variance to those core elements, giving Mildred a weary, graceful intelligence.”