ON SWIFT HORSES

It’s the 1950s. Newlyweds Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Lee (Will Poulter) leave their Kansas home for a new life in San Diego, with steady jobs and a house they can start a family in. Lee’s brother Julius (Jacob Elordi), meanwhile, returns from the Korean War without any long-term plans. A deft hand at poker, he winds up in Las Vegas, where he does pit surveillance at a casino and befriends Henry (Diego Calva, BABYLON), a handsome Chicano who, like Julius, loves a good gamble. All this time, Muriel and Julius correspond, though neither realize how much they have in common. Bored with waiting tables, Muriel secretly begins playing the horses — and winning. What’s more, Muriel and Julius find themselves on parallel journeys involving clandestine transgressions that could place them in greater danger than either bargained for. ON SWIFT HORSES—based on the 2019 Shannon Pufahl novel—finds rapturous beauty in the décor and accoutrements of the era. Yet what lingers most is the power of its characters’ yearnings, whether secret or boldly declared. This is a story about risking everything for love, only to gain self-knowledge along the way.