On Swift Horses

On Swift Horses is a 2024 American drama film directed by Daniel Minahan, with Bryce Kass adapting the script from Shannon Pufahl’s novel of the same name, which was first published in 2019. Ley Line Entertainment, FirstGen Content and Cor Cordium produce the project, which has an ensemble cast including Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter, Diego Calva and Sasha Calle.

On Swift Horses
Directed by	Daniel Minahan
Screenplay by	Bryce Kass
Based on	On Swift Horses by Shannon Pufahl
Produced by	Peter Spears Daniel Minahan Mollye Asher Tim Headington Theresa Steele Page Michael D’Alto
Starring	Daisy Edgar-Jones Jacob Elordi Will Poulter Diego Calva Sasha Calle
Cinematography	Luc Montpellier
Edited by	Joe Murphy Robert Frazen Kate Sanford
Music by	Mark Orton
Production companies	Ley Line Entertainment Cor Cordium Wavelength FirstGen Content Killer Films
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Classics
Release date	September 7, 2024 (2024-09-07) (TIFF)
Running time	117 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

It had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2024.

Premise

Muriel and her husband Lee are beginning a bright new life in California following his return from the Korean War, which is upended by the arrival of Lee’s charismatic younger brother, Julius. Lee is keen for the three of them to build a new life together in San Diego, but Julius decides to travel to Las Vegas instead, where he finds employment in a casino and meets Henry, a male co-worker. Julius and Henry fall in love and the two men begin a secret romantic relationship, including living together in a motel room. Meanwhile, Muriel embarks on a secret life of her own back in California, gambling on racehorses and discovering a love she never thought possible after meeting a female neighbor, Sandra.

Cast

• Daisy Edgar-Jones as Muriel, Lee's wife
• Jacob Elordi as Julius, Lee's brother, a Korean War veteran
• Will Poulter as Lee, Muriel's husband and Julius' brother
• Diego Calva as Henry, Julius’ lover
• Sasha Calle as Sandra, Muriel's neighbor
• Don Swayze as Terence

Production

Producer Peter Spears and director Daniel Minahan announced in July 2021 that they were developing the film with Tim Headington and his production company Ley Line Entertainment, and that Bryce Kass would be adapting the novel by Shannon Pufahl. Mollye Asher and Michael D’Alto of FirstGen Content, along with Theresa Steele Page of Ley Line Entertainment, would later join Spears, Minahan and Headington as producers of the film, with financing from Ley Line Entertainment and FirstGen alongside Wavelength. The film’s executive producers are screenwriter Bryce Kass, Alvaro Valente, Christine Vachon and Mason Plotts for Killer Films, Nate Kamiya and David Darby for Ley Line Entertainment, Randal Sandler, Claude Amadeo and Chris Triana for FirstGen, and Jennifer Westphal and Joe Plummer for Wavelength, along with Lauren Shelton, Jeffrey Penman, Jacob Elordi, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Teddy Schwarzman and John Friedberg.

Filming

Principal photography was confirmed to have started on the production in Los Angeles on February 28, 2023. Diego Calva told Variety that he and Jacob Elordi have some "pretty hot scenes".

Release

It had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2024. In October 2024, Sony Pictures Classics acquired distribution rights to the film in North and Latin America, Turkey, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, India, Italy, Australia and New Zealand.

Marketing

The marketing has frequently downplayed, and sometimes avoided mentioning, the film’s focus on LGBTQ characters and relationships, instead releasing material which gives the misleading impression that the film is about a love affair between Jacob Elordi and Daisy Edgar-Jones’ characters, when both characters are actually queer and do not have either a love affair or a sexual encounter with each other, instead forming romantic and sexual relationships with characters of the same sex. The first synopsis, made available via Deadline when the project was initially announced as being in development in 2021, did not mention that any of the characters or relationships in the film are LGBTQ, instead claiming that a “dangerous love triangle” forms between Julius, Muriel and Lee. A second version of the synopsis, released when the project was announced as having begun filming in 2023, likewise made the misleading claim of a "dangerous love triangle" and did not mention any LGBTQ elements, and on this occasion did not even mention Julius having any relationships beyond his family situation with his brother and sister-in-law, instead erasing all mention of both his love interest and his love interest's gender from the plot. The description of the plot on the website of the film's international sales agent Black Bear Pictures (whose founder, Teddy Schwarzman, is also one of the film’s executive producers) also uses the misleading wording of the 2023 press release, and only alludes to the queer themes of the movie through a link to The Hollywood Reporter's review of the movie at the end of the page.

The visual promotional material has likewise downplayed the film’s LGBTQ elements while also creating a misleading impression of the nature of the interactions between the male and female leads. A first look image of the film, made available by the Toronto International Film Festival on August 13, 2024, shows Edgar-Jones and Elordi staring at each other in a way which was misinterpreted as romantic by those unfamiliar with the material. This image was heavily promoted by the film’s publicists across the internet and supplied to journalists for use as the featured image for most articles about the film, in contrast to any images of the film’s same sex couples, which were not made public until September 6. A screenshot of a misleading IndieWire article, showing the title “Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi yearn for each other in love triangle adaptation”, was also posted on the Instagram account of one of the film’s financiers, Ley Line Entertainment.

The day before the film’s world premiere, three more stills of the cast were made public through an article in Vanity Fair which finally alluded to the LGBTQ relationships in the film, and included shots of Elordi with Calva and Edgar-Jones with Calle; however, in both photos the couples are shown physically further apart than Elordi and Edgar-Jones in the first look image, while a third photo accompanying the article portrayed Edgar-Jones with Will Poulter in a more physically intimate situation than the shots of either of the same-sex couples. During press for the film’s world premiere, there were also no joint interviews between the actors who played the gay couples in the film, despite the fact that joint interviews took place between Elordi and Edgar-Jones (in Vanity Fair) and between Edgar-Jones and Poulter (in The Hollywood Reporter). 

When it was announced that the film had been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics on October 8, 2024, the company continued the downplaying of the film's LGBTQ themes. Sony Pictures Classics made a post on Instagram showing a headline from The Wrap which inaccurately described the film as a “Jacob Elordi and Daisy Edgar-Jones romance”, and a press release on SPC’s website also used a version of the film’s synopsis which made no reference to the film’s LGBTQ aspects, instead misleadingly describing Julius, Muriel and Lee as being in a “dangerous love triangle” and making no mention of the fact that Julius and Muriel are queer and that the romantic relationships alluded to in the synopsis are with members of the same sex. As of December 21, 2024, more than two months since they first announced they would be distributing the film, Sony Pictures Classics has still not made any public acknowledgment of any of the film’s LGBTQ characters, relationships or themes.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 63% of 19 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.9/10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 68 out of 100, based on eight critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

Jourdain Searles of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film is "beautiful, heartbreaking, and demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Elordi gives his best performance yet as Julius, showing his more sensitive, vulnerable side on the big screen for perhaps the first time. His love scenes with Calva are tender and exciting…Calva proves his memorable turn in the underrated Babylon two years ago was just a warm-up. He's got so much more to offer." Regarding Edgar-Jones, Searles wrote that "in perhaps her meatiest role since Normal People, Edgar-Jones gives an understated performance as Muriel, letting us get to know her through subtle gestures and expressions."

Christian Zilko of IndieWire gave the film a grade of A-, praising the writing, cinematography, and direction: "Bryce Kass's script (based on Shannon Pufahl's novel of the same name) straddles an ideal line between sentimentality and bitterness, while [director] Minahan and cinematographer Luc Montpellier shoot everything from torrid sex scenes to Christmas Eve moonlight strolls with the elegance that it deserves.”

Nicolas Rapold of the Financial Times wrote that "Minahan and his cast don't reduce Julius's or Muriel's affairs to a vehicle for prestige tragedy or steamy entertainment. Their experiences feel as if they might reflect any one of countless lives or loves constrained by social conformity and bias at the time. While glamour could dazzle on screens and red carpets at the festival, the handsome stars…are put in the service of something that at times can feel even rarer—ordinary emotional truths."

Meanwhile, in a more dissenting review, Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood contends that too many plot developments are interwoven "throughout this disjointed movie, which can't seem to decide which thread to follow or which character to focus on, and so it does it all. Edgar-Jones also seems to have a tough time getting a real handle on just who Muriel is…Poulter is the poor lost soul in all this, and he could have been the antagonist…but he's really a good old boy. Elordi is becoming one of the most interesting actors around, especially after Saltburn and Euphoria have cemented his sex symbol bona fides. If they ever remake Hud, he's the guy. However, it is Calva, the discovery from Damien Chazelle's Babylon, who is the standout, an intriguing character to be sure. And Calva hits all the right notes—in and out of bed with Elordi. [Also] Montpellier's golden-hued cinematography really reflects California's allure of the times, and the film looks terrific."

See also

• List of films set in Las Vegas

External links

• On Swift Horses at IMDb
• On Swift Horses at TIFF