On Swift Horses

Lee, Muriel and Julius on a swing seat

On Swift Horses is giddy 1950s melodrama for the 21st century, with Will Poulter and Jacob Elordi as brothers charting separate courses through the great American post-War boom. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays the prize for one of them, or she would be if she weren’t also on a journey of her own, towards a sense of self-actualisation. The dynamic is good boy/bad boy, Poulter drawing the short straw as Lee, the hard-working, conformist brother married to wife Muriel (Edgar-Jones), while Elordi has the fun as Julius, the sexy gambler on the road less travelled. In the film’s opening moments Julius arrives back from the Korean War at the homestead of Lee and Muriel and … Read more

Twisters

Kate in shades sits on the roof of a chaser truck

No one was exactly clamouring for it but Twisters, the imaginatively titled sequel to Twister, turned out alright in the end anyway. The original, complete with flying cow, came out in 1996, 24 years ago. At that point Lee Isaac Chung, director of this sequel, was a fresh faced 18 years old, star Glen Powell was eight and co-star Daisy Edgar-Jones was minus two. To the film’s credit it leaves Twister where it was, not referring back to it at all. There are no cameos to remind us when Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton were the plucky duo chasing tornadoes around the mid-West, trying to heal a broken relationship as they dodged airborne … Read more