Dir: Daniel Minahan. With: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter, Sasha Calle. 119 mins. Cert: 15
The annual awards corridor reopens – somewhat tentatively – with this absorbing, detailed melodrama, adapted by screenwriter Bryce Kass from Shannon Pufahl’s Fifties-set 2019 novel. Kass begins with a narrative feint: after some dutiful lovemaking with husband Lee (Will Poulter), young bride Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) spies Lee’s studly drifter brother Julius (Jacob Elordi) sprawling shirtless on a station wagon outside, the playing cards in his pocket signifying trouble. Things aren’t as hetero as they appear, however: Muriel’s drawn to Julius for what he represents rather than who he is, cueing an atypical love triangle where the protagonists are mostly prised apart, and where the optimal outcome may well be for all concerned to pursue their own paths.
Pufahl’s project, boosted here by longtime Todd Haynes producer Christine Vachon, is to flag that this moment in American life wasn’t entirely as staid as we’ve been led to believe, that identities were shifting beneath the placid surface of post-War reconstruction. Waitress Muriel gambles on racing tips from her regulars, before trysting with a sapphically inclined neighbour (Sasha Calle). Julius sells his body to fellow cardsharps and becomes a professional peeper, prowling a casino’s eaves to spot blackjack cheaters. (Even here, the rising heat obliges him to lose the shirt.) Only Poulter’s Lee, upright in flannel, clings to an older, squarer design for life, installing his wife in a little box on a Californian hillside, yet he seems as destined for heartbreak as anyone.
With TV veteran Daniel Minahan (Six Feet Under, Deadwood) keeping these lonely furrows premium-cable handsome, the film’s own secret may be that it’s a miniseries squeezed into a cinematic closet. (Lorded over by Don Swayze, the casino surely merits its own episode.) The minor-key romantic snafu, composed chiefly of undercurrents, remains a touch callow to generate the devotional passions of a Far from Heaven or Carol: these are just kids, arranged into attractive, affirmative poses to feel one another out. Yet Kass and Minahan combine old and new while rubbing suggestively against the grain: the familiar pleasures of watching charismatic young actors yearning meet the novelty of seeing them plugged into situations our period dramas have historically overlooked.
On Swift Horses opens in selected cinemas from tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment