<\/p>\n
This piece contains spoilers for On Swift Horses<\/p>\n
On Swift Horses, directed by Daniel Minahan and adapted from the novel by Shannon Pufahl<\/a>, is a romantic drama set in the US in the 1950s \u2013 an era familiar from classic Hollywood cinema and countless nostalgic films and TV series. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Muriel, who is quickly (if somewhat reluctantly) engaged to be married to Lee (Will Poulter) \u2013 a working-class man with aspirations to the American dream. The arrival of Lee\u2019s brother Julius (Jacob Elordi), however, reveals cracks in the young couple\u2019s seemingly perfect relationship.<\/p>\n That this is a queer film is not immediately obvious from its publicity. In fact, promotional materials might lead audiences to assume that Muriel and Julius embark upon an affair.<\/p>\n While the pair are drawn to one another, the connection between them is more complex. Muriel is struggling with the gendered expectations of the era and, as the film will go on to explore, both characters are queer.<\/p>\n Upon moving to California with Lee, Muriel meets two queer women who will open up new possibilities. The first is the glamorous Gail (portrayed by queer, non-binary artist Kat Cunning), who kisses Muriel and leads her to a local gay bar. The second is Sandra (Sasha Calle), her Latinx, visibly queer coded neighbour.<\/p>\n Both meetings showcase the lingering looks and subtle flirtations of queer romance \u2013 codes forged out of necessity and often used, or interpreted, as queer subtext. In On Swift Horses, however, queerness takes centre stage as Muriel and Sandra begin an affair.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Julius abandons plans to join Lee and Muriel in suburban California in favour of a wilder, freer life in Vegas. It\u2019s in the desert city where, finding work in a casino, he meets and falls in love with Henry (played by Mexican actor Diego Calva).<\/p>\n In both romances, the iconography of 1950s Americana are reimagined, making visible, to an extent, the very real queer subcultures of the era. For example, in the gay bar that Gail leads Muriel to, the lesbian party Muriel stumbles upon at Sandra\u2019s house, and the secret haunts of gay men. In these scenes, the hidden but vibrant worlds of 1950s queer people are represented.<\/p>\n This was, after all, the era of butches<\/a> (masculine-presenting lesbians), studs<\/a> (Black masculine-presenting lesbians) and femmes<\/a> (feminine-presenting lesbians) \u2013 these were identities that emerged in queer women\u2019s bar communities that resisted the heteronormativity of the era. It encompassed clothing, roles and relationships. It also saw the rise of the homophile movement<\/a>, which was early LGBTQ+ activism that challenged social stigmas and sought acceptance, albeit on limited terms.<\/p>\n Both secretive subcultures and social movements were necessary as this was a period of significant legal and social repression, with the government viscously<\/a> targeting communists and those deemed \u201cdeviants\u201d. Included in this was the Lavender Scare<\/a> where queer people were targeted. The film portrays this too, with police raids and violent attacks always on the periphery of queer lives. As Gail warns Muriel, \u201cWe\u2019re all just a hair\u2019s breadth from losing everything.\u201d<\/p>\n This poignant line has contemporary resonances. As Calle notes in an interview<\/a>: \u201c\u2026even though the movie is based in the 50s, everything that happened \u2013 the oppression that was happening at that time \u2013 is so relevant today.\u201d<\/p>\n The film is enjoyable and the ending hopeful. However, I ultimately found it unsatisfying as the characters and narrative never really go deep enough. While Sandra insists to Muriel that she is a real person, the film doesn\u2019t really give her much room to be one \u2013 her life and story remain unknown, her function is largely to facilitate Muriel\u2019s journey (a familiar trope). Similarly, while Henry does point out that, as a Mexican queer man, things are different for him than they are for Julius, the queer Latinx characters remain secondary and the racialised context of the period is never fully explored.<\/p>\n Interestingly, director Daniel Minahan is best known for television \u2013 having directed hit series such as Six Feet Under, True Blood, Game of Thrones and Fellow Travellers (a series that also depicts closeted queer lives in the 50s). As the critic Mike McCahill notes in The Guardian<\/a>, On Swift Horses might similarly have worked better as a television series. In this format, the more expansive possibilities of a TV show would have offered more space to flesh out the characters and their trajectories.<\/p>\n Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kate McNicholas Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This piece contains spoilers for On Swift Horses On Swift Horses, directed by Daniel Minahan and adapted from the novel by Shannon Pufahl, is a romantic drama set in the US in the 1950s \u2013 an era familiar from classic Hollywood cinema and countless nostalgic films and TV series. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Muriel, who is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1946120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[369974,369971,21799,369973,369976,364214,369975,369972,367303],"class_list":["post-2016736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-brother-julius","tag-daniel-minahan","tag-film","tag-muriel","tag-on-swift-horses","tag-queer-film","tag-queer-romance","tag-queer-women","tag-sasha-calle"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Lloyd-native-nominated-for-6-IBMA-awards.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2016736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1946120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2016736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2016736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2016736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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