‘On Swift Horses’ Review: Daisy Edgar-Jones Wagers There’s More to Marriage in ’50s-Set Drama

variety.com:

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic When “On Swift Horses” played as a secret screening at the Palm Springs Film Festival in January, at least half a dozen people walked out, not because it’s bad, but because a certain contingent of the normally open-minded art-house audience hadn’t signed up for a gay love story.

For that reason, it feels like the opposite of a spoiler — something between a consumer service and a selling point — to address what the festival capsules only coyly imply, using phrases like “self-discovery” (Toronto) and “exploring a love she never dreamed possible” (SXSW).

Adapted from the well-regarded novel by Shannon Pufahl, director Daniel Minahan’s period drama explores the challenges of coming out in the 1950s, as two characters attracted not to one another — as those deliberately deceptive plot synopses would have you think — but to members of their own genders.

Knowing that allows you to focus not on the clumsy sexual tension suggested between Julius (Jacob Elordi) and his soon-to-be-sister-in-law Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones), but the kinship these misfit souls discover amid a more clandestine era.