From director Daniel Minahan, Where the swift horse Premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, September 7. It is based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Shannon Pufahl and takes place in 1950s America. The story follows newlyweds Muriel and Lee, who move to San Diego to start a new life. Meanwhile, Lee’s brother, Julius, returns from the Korean War and finds himself pit watching at a Las Vegas casino. Through a surprising series of events, Muriel and Julius end up on a similar, yet dangerous, journey that brings them together in ways they never expected.
Where the swift horse Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter, Diego Calva and Sasha Calle. Minahan, who also serves as a producer on the film, shares that he was drawn to Pufahl’s original story because it lacked a traditional antagonist. The director believes that the real obstacle is Muriel and Julius’ struggle to be their authentic selves despite what that means for those around them. Minahan embraces the challenges that came with adapting the book and says she’s proud of the final product.
Screen Rant Minahan was interviewed during the Toronto International Film Festival about the dynamic of Muriel and Julius. Where the swift horseThe significance of the atomic bomb scene, and brought 1950s America to life.
Minahan believes Muriel and Julius’ affection for each other is unique
“I think they really complement each other, and it’s an attraction and affection that I haven’t seen dramatized before.”
Screen Rant: Can you talk a little about Muriel and Julius’ attraction to each other and how they act as foils as they search for their own version of the American dream?
Daniel Minahan: I think, first and foremost, it’s a movie about desire, and these two characters, Muriel and Julius, meet each other and they’re instantly attracted to each other. We don’t know if it is love, sexual attraction, affection. And as the film goes on, I think we start to realize that they really get to know each other. They recognize something in each other. They are both outsiders, they are both observers, and as we get to know them better, we realize that they are both trying to find their true selves and explore the strange underworld of Vegas and San Diego.
And I think a big connection between the two of them, is that they both see each other and they enter into each other’s lives. They have this affection, and they change the direction of each other’s lives. I think Muriel is in love with Julius’s idea of freedom. And I think Julius is in love with the idea of being somewhere, which Muriel is. So I think they really complement each other, and it’s an attraction and affection that I haven’t seen dramatized before. That’s what really drew me to this novel and adapting this novel.
We need to talk about the atomic bomb scene. What does this mean symbolically for the story and for the characters?
Daniel Minahan: I think the scene where Henry takes Julius to the desert for a party and watches the government detonate a nuclear bomb is one of the most romantic dates I could ever imagine. It puts us firmly in the time when, in addition to this exotic beginning in Nevada, Vegas, this is the edge of America where they’re testing the atomic bomb. So it works on so many levels, and it’s incredibly romantic and a great metaphor for these people blowing up their lives to be together.
Where the swift horse Your first major film, but you’ve directed brilliant episodes of television. I’m curious, what the transition was like from the economical process of shooting television to such an epic romance.
Daniel Minahan: I’ve made a few films, not as well known. I wrote a film called I Shot Andy Warhol, which became a feature, many years ago, and then a film called Series 7. Series 7 was a movie – imagine a TV series where people were followed as they killed each other and fought for their own survival. Then that kind of brought me into the world of HBO, where Six Feet Under was a cult film in the writers’ room. That brought me to HBO, and I got to work with a lot of really great writers, and I’ve stayed there.
I come from a documentary background, and I was a journalist before, so working on the series was a really big learning experience for me. And when you work on series, you often come in, you do an episode and you leave, and there’s someone else who’s really responsible for the entire arc of the season, and they’ve already kind of made an appearance. In the last 10 years, I have been working as a producer and really setting up series. I’ve been producing and directing the series, but I’ve had the opportunity, for example, with Halston, I directed the whole thing and I think of it as a six-hour film.
It’s a very different experience. It’s like the difference between writing a novel and a short story. Series are more novelistic in that they go and go and go and they’re episodic and you can explore things in more detail. In a feature, you have to be very concise and very specific about the story you want to tell, and you really tie it in like a short story. So I enjoyed it very much. It was a very positive experience for me, and I am proud of what I was able to do with my colleagues in it.
Finding locations was a major challenge while filming Swift Horse
“You had to be really inventive. You had to find really cool locations that were going to serve a lot of different things.”
What was the most challenging part about bringing 1950s America to life?
Daniel Minahan: I would say the whole thing was a challenge. It was too ambitious. We were exploring, we were setting world-building stories in about five different worlds: Kansas, San Diego, Las Vegas, and Tijuana. You have to be really inventive. You had to find really great locations that were going to serve a lot of different things, and I really relied on my great art department and my cinematographer to pull it all together. I would say that was one of the biggest challenges. And the other thing, which was a great challenge, but it’s one of the things that drew me to this story, is that the swift horse has no traditional counterpart.
I think in other 1950s coming-of-age stories or a clear coming-out story, there would be this very clear antagonist, which would be the husband, his disapproval and his abuse. But we had a great character who was very gentle and very loving and just wanted to make a family with these two people she loved so much, and unfortunately, she was in that way. I think the antagonist of this piece really became the struggle that Muriel and Julius had to be their authentic selves and knowing that they were going to hurt other people like Muriel’s husband along the way.
Muriel and Julius switch places about halfway through the movie. Muriel becomes vulnerable while Julius wants to play it safe with Henry. Do you think these are their natural desires, or are they looking for others within themselves?
Daniel Minahan: I think Julius had been living on the shore for a long time and living a dangerously uncontrolled life, and here was an opportunity for him to make a home with his brother and Muriel. He knew in his heart why he couldn’t do it. And so I think she found Henry and thought he would be the person she could make a home with and find a place. And Muriel learns the value of freedom. I think Muriel harbors the idea that if she collects all this money, she’ll win at the track, she’ll become this autonomous person, that she’ll be happy.
And what he learned is that he hurt a lot of people along the way, but I think he ended up in a really good place. He goes back home. In the whole film he said, I like the country. He asks Sandra, “So you live here alone?” He meets this woman living without a man, and then he says to Sandra, “You’re not afraid of being alone, are you?” I think Muriel came to this place of self-realization, but through a lot of experimentation. Will he end up with Sandra later? I like to think that they correct and they merge. I think they had such great chemistry.
About Daniel Minahan’s On Swift Horses
“A story of risking everything for love, only to gain self-knowledge along the way.”
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 home where they can start a family. Lee’s brother Julius (Jacob Elordi, Oh, also at the Canadian festival), meanwhile, returns from the Korean War with no long-term plans.
A skilled hand at poker, he wanders into Las Vegas, where he watches the pits at a casino and befriends Henry (Diego Calva, TIFF ’15’s Te prometo anarquía), a handsome Chicano who, like Julius, loves a good gamble. All the while, Muriel and Julius correspond, though neither of them realizes how much they have in common. Fed up with waiting tables, Muriel secretly starts playing horse – and wins. What’s more, Muriel and Julius find themselves on parallel journeys involving secret transgressions that may put them in more danger than they bargained for.
Bryce Kass served as screenwriter
Where the swift horse
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Where the swift horse Premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7.