Guy Lodge’s pick of other films: On Swift Horses, Christy and The Courageous

On Swift Horses

(119 mins, 15) Directed by Daniel Minahan; starring Jacob Elordi, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Diego Calva, Will Poulter

Based on a popular 2019 novel by Shannon Pufahl and starring a host of bright young things, this lush period drama seemed like it would be a bigger deal when it premiered at Toronto a year ago. Now it shuffles quietly on to cinema screens months after barely denting the US box office. Part of the problem – though not the film’s fault – is that the marketing led people to expect a swooning romance between Jacob Elordi and Daisy Edgar-Jones. In fact, it’s a sensitively drawn and classically styled queer love story, in which the stars play siblings-in-law Julius and Muriel – a fine Will Poulter plays Lee, his brother and her husband – tentatively exploring same-sex desires in a 1950s US that veers between buttoned-up and heedlessly hedonistic.

Julius is a languidly charismatic drifter, newly returned from the Korean war, with a penchant for gambling that leads him to Las Vegas, where he falls into the arms of casino worker Henry (Diego Calva). Muriel, meanwhile, is attempting to live the baby-boom dream in suburban California, but struggles to suppress other yens. Inspired by Julius, she develops a horse-betting habit; more significantly, she can’t get her neighbour Sandra (Sasha Calle) off her mind. The film is schematic and a little plot-crammed as it follows these twin narrative tracks to moist-eyed destinations – here’s the rare two-hour film that could stand to be a bit longer. But it’s so full-hearted and creamily shot that we’re mostly swept along. And Elordi, in particular, is wonderful as the alternately smouldering and melancholy Julius, playing him with a quiet, boyish machismo that recalls certain closeted mid-century matinee idols.

Christy (95 mins, 15) Directed by Brendan Canty; starring Danny Power, Diarmuid Noyes, Emma Willis

This scrappy, spirited directorial debut from Irishman Brendan Canty has been a real crowdpleaser on the film festival circuit, mopping up audience awards left and right. That can sometimes indicate a soft, middle-of-the-road approach, but there’s a pleasing streetwise attitude and lack of sentimentality to this story of the title character (fierce rising talent Danny Power), a hardened 17-year-old forced to move in with his estranged half-brother, Shane (Diarmuid Noyes), on the fringes of Cork after being spit out by an overburdened care system.

Both brothers are suffering their own trauma years after the death of their mother. Shane, attempting to live on the straight and narrow and raise his young family, has little room in his life to nurture a wayward teenager, which heightens the risk of Christy falling in with his criminal cousins. It’s a familiar crossroads story, with few great surprises in the telling. But the film’s rewards are in its specific, lively sense of place and community, and in the flinty but palpably heartsore performances of its two leads.

The Courageous

(83 mins, 12A) Directed by Jasmin Gordon; starring Ophélia Kolb, Jasmine Kalisz Saurer, Paul Besnier

Best known to international audiences for playing uptight tax auditor Colette in Call My Agent!, the French actor Ophélia Kolb gives a bare, shattering performance in this Swiss drama in which she plays that character’s spiritual opposite. Jule, a single mother of three with an unexplained monitoring tag on her ankle, is struggling to keep her head above water, let alone those of her kids. Her income is sparse and at times of sketchy origin; she’s behind on rent while trying to scrape together enough money for a down payment on a house.

First-time writer-director Jasmin Gordon is attuned to the grinding exhaustion of living in poverty, but her film isn’t an exercise in dour miserabilism. Rather, it’s a humane, multifaceted portrait of maternal devotion, sometimes outside the bounds of what society defines as responsible parenting.