The closing night film at SXSW in Austin at the Paramount Theater on March 13, 2025 was “On Swift Horses.” Director Daniel Minahan (“Six Feet Under”) was present with cast members Daisy Edgar-Jones (Muriel), Diego Calva (Henry), and Sasha Calle (Sandra). Missing from the stage was the cast member most came to see, newcomer Jacob Elordi, who played Julius Walker, brother of Will Poulter’s Lee.
Sasha and Diego on the Red Carpet at SXSW on March 13, 2025. (Photo by Connie Wilson).
The scripted line “He has passions of his own” (Lee to Muriel) is code for “my brother Julius is gay.” Apparently the many gay sex scenes caused a few patrons to depart the Palm Springs International Festival when it was a surprise showing. The true nature of the relationships is somewhat shielded by the veiled write-up(s) that appeared before the film was screened.
As the plot progresses, we learn that Muriel, too, may be gay—although she may be more accurately termed bi-sexual. As I watched the film, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the content of the “Sally” documentary of Sally Ride, who also married and had male lovers, hid her true sexuality from the world, but spent the final decades of her life with a significant partner of the same sex.
There is definitely chemistry between Daisy Edgar-Jones’ character and Julius when he shows up at the Kansas farm that Muriel has recently inherited from her deceased mother. I was hopeful that this “forbidden passion” was going to be played out onscreen, but it was several different kinds of forbidden passions of the fifties that comprised the film’s 2 hour run.
LGBQT?
As a female appreciative of a young actor as good-looking as Jacob Elordi (“Saltburn”) it disappointed me that the sex scenes we saw the most of were between Elordi and Diego Calva as Henry. To each his own, but the loss of some heterosexual love scenes between two such attractive leads as Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi was a big disappointment, just as the young actor’s absence from the premiere was a let-down for the crowds that had gathered.
There would be some less lengthy love scenes between Muriel and Sandra (Sasha Calle). Sasha Calle turned in a dynamite performance, as did Daisy Edgar-Jones.
BACKGROUND
The unsung heroes: the writers! (Book, left, Shannon Pufahl, and screenplay, right, Bryce Kass). (Photo by Connie Wilson)
The book “On Swift Horses”, written by Shannon Pufahl, was the basis for this film. I get the distinct impression that I should go back to the source material to see how accurate the Bryce Kass screenplay was in adapting the multi-layered story of young love and lust in the fifties in the United States.
But, as a woman who lived through this decade (the Eisenhower era), I feel informed enough to comment on the societal repression it portrays. Women, in the fifties and sixties, were not allowed to have credit cards in their own names. We had to apply as Mrs. Wilson or, in this case as Mrs. Lee Walker to get a department store credit card. It was still illegal in San Diego to be queer until 1975, said Sasha Calle from the stage. Jobs of various sorts were not open to females (i.e., the high-paying ones.) Prejudice against queer or gay citizens existed, even if it was unspoken, and, all-in-all, it was not the greatest time to come of age as a woman in America nor to be “different” in any way.
The screenplay by Bryce Kass tells us that Muriel’s mother was the first woman in Marshall County, Kansas, to get a car, the first to go to college, and the first to get a divorce. Perhaps Muriel’s blazing new life paths for herself isn’t quite as surprising after we learn that information about the bold steps taken by her own mother. There is also the put-down from Julius who said, “That sad girl. She needs someone to tell her what to do.” Remarks like that would make today’s females mad enough to cut loose and attempt to do their own thing. It may have sparked those emotions in young Muriel. As Director Minahan said from the stage “These are young people following their hearts and risking everything to be themselves.” Another documentary (about Sally Ride) playing here (and at Sundance), “Sally,” covered the same ground with a woman who was the first U.S. woman in space. My point: yes this prejudice against gays, lesbians, Hispanics existed in the fifties and beyond. It still exists in repressive countries like Iran and Russia. Are we secure that those bad old days are gone forever in America today? Check your local newspaper (online, of course) to see if equality—which came a long way—can survive in 2025.
SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS
Daisy Edgar-Jones (Muriel) at SXSW on March 13, 2025. (Photo by Connie Wilson).
Muriel marries Lee, but not very enthusiastically. There is repressed sexual tension between Muriel and Julius as soon as he shows up at the couple’s home. (If only that had been let play out a bit more.) The dancing scenes were promising. From an interested onlooker, you have Lee–who is a good guy with a bad hairdo—and you have Julius, who is gorgeous. No wonder Muriel hesitates to give a straight answer about marriage when she meets the handsome brother. We suspect, however, that her lone wolf style, which emerges and triumphs, is more her inner spirit guiding her than the temporary lure of a more attractive male. Muriel is young and she is finding her own way, which ultimately doesn’t involve either brother. Lee (Will Poulter) says that Muriel has chosen what is not real. (Hmmm)
Will describes his brother as “He gets to live his life like there’s no tomorrow.” Basically, it means, as one other scripted line put it, that Julius ends up “a thief, a faggot and alone.” It does seem that Julius really wants to have a meaningful relationship with Henry (Diego Calva), harkening back to films like “Brokeback Mountain.” In fact, in the latter half of the 1 hour and 59 minute film, Julius is putting his life in danger looking for Henry in Tijuana. (Thank heaven for Henry’s little gold gun at the moment of truth!)
One performer who stood out was Sasha Calle as Sandra. Her onscreen performance as a sexually liberated lesbian bombshell was palpable. She smolders onscreen with a sense of self-confidence. Sasha referred to the cast as “young, attractive, and cool” right before breaking into laughter and calling herself a “dork.” She’s a dork who will have a bright future in the right parts, as will Daisy Edgar-Jones, who has already been working professionally since age 17 on the London stage and in television.
Sasha Calle on the Red Carpet for “On Swift Horses” at SXSW on March 13, 2025. (Photo by Connie Wilson).
Diego Calva told the audience during the Q&A that he was not sure, at first, that he was the right choice for Henry, but Director Minahan sat him down and said, “You’re Henry. Be brave.” Calva (“Babylon”) was brave (as was Elordi). However, I’m still regretting the failure to provide equal time for an Elordi/Edgar-Jones hook-up. (Different strokes for different folks.) The sexual tension was there; it would be nice to see the two paired again in a different vehicle.
I wasn’t as convinced by the Elordi/Calva relationship. It was not because it was a homosexual relationship. It was because I had a hard time understanding much of Diego Calva’s dialogue and some of Jacob Elordi’s. On the other hand, I was impressed with how well Daisy Edgar-Jones, born in 1998 in London, handled her American Midwestern accent. She has shared that snippets of her accent(s) from a Northern Ireland grandfather and her Scottish father emerge at times. Edgar-Jones trained at the National Youth Theatre in London.
THINGS THE PERIOD PIECE GOT RIGHT
Daisy Edgar-Jones on closing night of SXSW on March 13, 2025, at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Connie Wilson).
I lived through the fifties, a time when a married woman couldn’t get a credit card in her own name, but had to apply as (in this case), “Mrs. Muriel Walker” or “Mrs. Lee Walker.” A good friend of mine, a single teacher buying her first home, was truly irritated when she was listed as “a spinster” on the paperwork. (She was in her twenties at the time, but single.) Women were frowned upon in the professions. It was “okay” to be a secretary, a nurse, a teacher, or a hairdresser, but it was not okay to be an engineer, a doctor or a lawyer. The phrase “second class citizens” might be considered accurate for women in the 1950s and beyond. Yes, there were the occasional trail-blazers like Ruth Bader Ginsberg, but I’m talking about the majority of women. The pill did not really become available until the early sixties, so women were trapped by their biology and by the mores of society, which frowned on divorce and barely even had terms for women attracted to their own sex.
One thing that certainly was accurate: everybody smoked.
Kat Cunning as Gail. (Photo by Connie Wilson).
The gambling scenes, for both Julius and Muriel, were well-done and took us out of the house, the low-rent hotels ($1.50 a day), and the underbelly of fifties society, in general.
The un-sexy boxy female underwear of the era: accurate.
The Zenith radio and “The Rifleman” on TV: true to the times.
All-in-all lots of attention to detail to “get it right,” although one wonders if the principals aren’t a bit preoccupied with sex. Muriel, in the film, never has to contend with a pregnancy that might have changed the course of her life. Most of society’s women of the time did have to deal with that reality in one way or another, but Muriel seems to float through life on a lucky streak, winning at the race track even as she loses at marriage.
HORSES
Julius is a gambler, and Muriel becomes one, betting on the ponies. (Title reference). There is also a horse that Julius wins in a poker game and takes to his brother Lee’s house, thinking that Will and Muriel live on a ranch. Lee corrects him. Will had said the couple built a ranch-style house. Now they have a horse wandering around in their backyard. Interesting. Also interesting: I wondered how one could ride a horse from San Diego to Kansas, but nevermind about that. Jacob Elordi looks good on a horse, sprawled on the hood of a car (shirtless) when we first see him, in a sailor uniform or lazing about in his underwear. He even looked good dead (in “Saltburn”). Give me more Jacob Elordi opposite Daisy Edgar-Jones in the future, please.
The cast of “On Swift Horses” onstage after the film at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas, during SXSW’s closing night film on March 13, 2025. (Photo by Connie Wilson).
CONCLUSION: If you are an open-minded person who accepts same sex (and opposite sex) relationships without condemnation or moral judgment, as I am, but you are straight, you will probably regret not having more of the Elardi/Edgar-Jones chemistry explored onscreen, but the attempt to “really honor the performances and approach every scene with simplicity and integrity” was admirable. The performances were, by and large, authentic and touching and we get a peek into the sexually repressed fifties, which gives us a glimpse into the future that the current administration would like to reinstate. The cinematography from Luc Montpellier was terrific. The period music, costuming, and sets all contributed. The film opens in theaters on April 25th.
