Daisy Edgar-Jones – The Magnificent 60s

On Swift Horses (2025) *** – Seen at the Cinema

Authentic story stymied by unlikely plot. Set in a post-Korean War American when the United States is still a land of opportunity even for blue collar workers but sexuality and other forms of self-expression are stifled and the homosexual world is only accessible through secret codes. Married Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) hankers after something of the wilder life apparently enjoyed by the brother Julius (Jacob Elordi) of her staid husband Lee (Will Poulter). Truth be told she hankers after an illicit relationship with Julius.

Muriel harbors two other secrets. Firstly, she wants to gamble, a notion that would never gain approval from her husband, who accounts for every penny in his bid to own his own home and thus move up in society. Secondly, she has lesbian tendencies and gradually, encouraged by the self-confidence generated through successful betting at the racetrack, she assumes a different persona, surprisingly capable of making the first move.

Lee is aware of his brother’s proclivities, though these, too, are measured in guarded tones. Julius lives “in another world”, not just the low-down hustling and gambling and earning a living as a gigolo and card cheat. His homosexuality is repressed but his barriers are broken down by Mexican hustler Henry (Diego Calva). But while Julius is willing to settle for a life of energetic sex with Henry, his lover has greater ambition and plans to move up in society via the scam route.

Muriel’s affection for Julius is not hampered by the fact that he constantly steals from her, pocketing the cash she sends him for a bus fare home, burglarizing their house while they sleep. And while she is happy to indulge in a casual affair with gay neighbor Sandra (Sasha Calle) she’s not whole-heartedly committed to that lifestyle. And it’s hard to see just how committed she is to Lee – the horde of cash she wins at the racecourse she keeps hidden from her husband even though it would miraculously ease their upwardly mobility.

While Muriel negotiates the hidden world with some care – gay people of both sexes meet at a certain hotel or come together under the guise of a book club – Julius is less wary and is beaten up and robbed a couple of times.

This isn’t quite the lush America of 1950s Hollywood with women bedecked in colorful dresses and enjoying cocktails, but there’s still satisfaction to be had in hauling yourself up and owning a tract of land and your own house. And it’s still down’n’dirty. Casinos spy on customers through two-mirror mirrors set in the ceiling and beat the life out of anyone caught cheating.

What wins your heart is the yearning. Muriel is caught in a half-world, even when she finds a willing lesbian partner she still aches for a heterosexual whirl with Julius. And Julius who believes he has found a safe sexual haven with Henry discovers that the latter’s naked ambition will destroy their tryst.

What doesn’t work are the fairy tale aspects. Julius isn’t a particularly good card cheat, a hidden ace or a partner at another table providing him with illicit advantage at the poker table. You’d expect he’d be rumbled quite easily. But the plot says no.

Similarly, Muriel enjoys an unbelievable good run on the horses, able to turn tips overheard from customers in the diner where she works into winning bets. Pretty quickly, and without a stumble, she has amassed a stash of $20,000. As if.

The ending doesn’t work either, Julius galloping on a horse (yep!) from San Diego to Las Vegas – a distance of some 350 miles (that’s some horse!) – after he realizes that, in fact, his heart belongs to Muriel, whose marriage has at last broken up, and she’s decided to follow her heart and become a gambler.

It leaves you wondering what kind of relationship they would have, a lavender marriage, where both are free to indulge in other aspects of their sexuality, no doubt living high on the hog from her racetrack winnings and his cheating at cards.

It looks to me like the director has bottled out of the third act, the one where supposedly they are the person of each other’s dreams and manage to make a life together as happy gamblers, until one or other decides that a person of their own sex is more fulfilling ultimately than a person of the opposite sex.

You didn’t need the barmy plot for this to work. And in fact it’s the barmy plot that gets in the way of it working. Both Julius and Muriel are entirely believable in looking for a love that dare not speak its name but can yet be easily located if you can follow the codes or if your gaydar is sufficiently developed.

Oddly enough, the most heart-breaking scene is the one before the barmy galloping. On the message board inside a gay meeting place are notes revealing the heartbreak caused not just by the dashing of love’s hopes but the destruction of marriages by men unable to conceal their secret desires.

The acting is uniformly good, though Jacob Elordi (Saltburn, 2023) thanks to his vulnerability, wins by a nose from Daisy Edgar-Jones (Twisters, 2024). But Will Poulter (Warfare, 2025) and Diego Calva (Babylon, 2022) also score points. Movie directing debut from Daniel Minahan from a script by Bryce Kass (Lizzie, 2018) based on the novel by Shannon Pufahl.

While you have to admire the actors for taking a gamble on this project – Elordi and Edgar-Jones are down as executive producers so they might also have taken pay cuts. But it has been an unmitigated financial bomb. Even the leanest movies these days appear to cost upwards of $10 million and this has barely touched the $1 million mark in global box offices. I attended the only daily screening at my local multiplex and there was only one other person in the audience. It probably deserves better and might have an afterlife on a streamer.

Enjoy the performances and ignore the plot.

Twisters (2024) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Now we’re talking. The summer blockbuster has arrived. The high octane movie bringing more carnage and destruction than two teams of superheroes duking it out thanks to stunning special effects that will have you gasping at the awesome power of a tornado. Forget the flying cow in the 1996 original. When you see how easily a tornado sucks out people hidden in the tightest spot then you’ll know how foolish it is to tangle with twisters, either for the hell of it or for purported scientific reasons.

On top of this and if it hadn’t been for those tornadoes racing around all over the place, we’d be watching the cutest romance this side of Anyone But You (2023) and blow me down if this doesn’t feature the fella from that, Glen Powell, in full-on cocky arrogant mode and the kind of shit-eating smile we haven’t seen since Josh Lucas in his prime.

But here’s the kicker: no matter how much Powell’s character nearly steals the show, it’s not his picture.

Daisy Edgar-Jones (When the Crawdads Sing, 2022) is not only billed ahead of him, and therefore the denoted star, but the movie follows her narrative arc. She’s in the stunning opening sequence and she’s the one – on her own – to tackle the killer twister at the end. She’s the one with the guilt – friends died following one of her plans – she can’t shift, not him. He merely tucks in alongside as she leads the way, gently, and initially rebuffed at every turn, trying to woo her.

And here’s another kicker. It’s sodden with science. The kind of information that has audiences looking for the exit. But the scientific psychobabble is delivered so well that you hardly have a moment to object and I’m sure if you held a pop quiz for moviegoers coming out I’m sure they’d be able to tell you exactly how twisters formed and what they needed to not only survive but grow.

The save-the-planet element is miniscule, hardly gets a breath, the idea that climate change is causing more twisters. And instead, we get a more cunning subplot, entrepreneur financing tornado research because he can move in on survivors and snap up land on the cheap. And if that’s not a poke at the greedy big business coming under fire for unwelcome philanthropy, I don’t know what is.

So Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is out of the game after causing the death of friends and lover until former buddy Javi (Anthony Ramos) winkles her out of her safe New York job to help him better test her pet theory – that there’s a way to tame twisters. Sure, that’s malarkey but it’s interesting malarkey. So she gives him a week and pitches in with his team, financed to the hilt by a businessmen to whom they feed tips about where the next twister will land.

She’s immediately put in charge of twister detection, demonstrating her instinctive knowledge of where a tornado might head or which cloud formation is most likely to turn nasty. These are the PhD po-faced professionals, all working, apparently, for the benefit of mankind.

Into their world charges Tyler (Glen Powell), YouTube broadcaster with a million subscribers, dressed like a cowboy who has his own line in merchandise and chases after twisters like Lt Killgore (Robert Duvall) in Apocalypse Now (1979), music blasting, though rock rather than classical. For entertainment value, he’s got on board weedy English journalist Ben (Harry Haden-Paton) whose job is to look terrified when the seasoned pros head into harm’s way with little concern. As I mentioned, mostly Tyler gets rebuffed when he tries his equally seasoned moves on Kate until her mum (Maura Tierney) comes to the rescue in a sequence that allows him to become better acquainted with her revolutionary tornado-taming theory.

There’s a heck of a lot of the will-she-won’t-she palaver that you could get in a genuine rom-com but it’s very gently done and it’s more old-fashioned than Anyone but You, more like Sleepless in Seattle (1993) where kindred spirits take a heck of a long time to decide they might be suited. Mostly the business of chasing after those darned tornadoes keeps them apart, beyond the initial dislike that’s par for the course, and luckily the screenwriters haven’t tried to shoehorn in a scene of them having to snuggle up together in the middle of nowhere after a tornado’s blown the world apart.

The stars exude screen chemistry and if the question after Anyone but You was when were the two principals there going to make another film together the question here will be just the same. Daisy Edgar Jones is a dead ringer for a young Helen Mirren, the same innoent intensity, and brings the kind of acting skills to a blockbuster that sets it apart while Powell shines once again with studios already acclaiming him the next new big male star.

Shout-out for Anthony Ramos (In the Heights, 2021) and Downton Abbey find Harry Hadden-Paton who looks like he’s set for a career’s worth of interesting character acting.

Director Lee Isaac Chung (Minari, 2020) takes the leap from arthouse to blockbuster in his stride, that previous background helping flesh out characters, and he lands this behemoth in style. Screenplay by Mark L. Smith (The Boys in the Boat, 2023).

My only disappointment is that I didn’t catch this in Imax. But that will be rectified soon.

Go see.

Where the Crawdads Sing (2022) **** – Seen at the Cinema

I enjoyed the film so much I went out (literally) and bought the book (multiplex and bookshop in same shopping mall). And I’ve no idea why this has received such a tepid response from critics. Reminiscent of Prince of Tides (1991), it packs a far greater emotional punch when it gets into its stride with the aftermath of romance gone wrong. And it’s not as sappy as that might suggest, themes far more adult than young adult, covering domestic abuse, attempted rape, vilification and humiliation.

Even though set in the 1960s, the sense that people fear the different is as topical today, it still stands as a portrait of the outsider for whom rejection by society is common. Illiterate Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones), snubbed by locals, lives alone in the marshes of North Carolina so when her boyfriend is killed she becomes the automatic suspect. The movie then shifts between the the present day courtroom of 1969 and the past. Isolation makes her vulnerable but not to the point where she is scared to fight back, although she acknowledges that “men always need the last word.” She’s also accustomed to literally covering her tracks, returning leaves disturbed by her footsteps to their original position, with concealment a fact of life.

Regardless of the prejudices of the townspeople, the audience is fed enough clues to leave them guessing right up to the very last scene in one of those revelations straight out of Jagged Edge (1985). And sufficient red herrings muddy the pitch while in true modern style vital pieces of information that might easily have determined the outcome of the trial are hidden until late in the day.

But this is not primarily a courtroom drama. It’s a beautifully realized coming-of-age picture, sucking you into a wilderness that in previous depictions of such alternative worlds would have been doused in violence, check Deliverance (1972) or Southern Comfort (1981). Kya isn’t capable of setting traps to lure the unwary, nor of predatory behavior. Instead, she is more open to abuse of her trust. The two men – Tate (Taylor John Smith) and Chase (Harris Dickinson) – who enter her life, with different degrees of entitlement, are liable to either abandon her or wish to control her.

Self-discovery remains core, with Kya’s tale as much about growing up as finding her path as an artist, and as she develops self-confidence is able to monetize her naturalist skills. Her artistry is often on show and through poetic internal monologues we view her soul, sometimes aching but just as often practical, never confusing the beauty of nature with a reality in which “even doves fight” to quote from the first few pages of the book I managed to read before starting this Blog.

*Producer Reese Witherspoon performed a nifty trick. She chose the novel for her book club, watched it turn into a bestseller and then produced the film.*

Tate and Chase bring out different aspects of her personality, the former teaching her to read and write, the latter determined to ensure she doesn’t lose the freedom so essential to her being. But whether either man can provide the emotional support she requires is open to question.

The twists and turns of the courtroom are well done. Defence attorney Tom Milton (David Strathairn) is surprisingly gentle for a lawyer, doing his best to bat away the more aggressive prosecutor’s claims. It’s classic stuff, trying to tie Sheriff Jackson (Bill Kelly) up in knots, deflecting prosecution attempts to paint her as an out-of-control feral child. Milton, plus storekeeper Jumpin’ (Sterling Macey Jr.) and his wife Mabel (Michael Hyatt), are the only locals to show any kindness.

It’s rich in atmosphere and the feeling Kya has for nature comes easily to the surface. I found it totally absorbing, helped in equal parts by the court proceedings, and Kya’s difficult navigation of the emotional highway. There’s a nice meet-cute, done with feathers would you believe, and her reactions to both men, restraint followed by passion, caution at war with raw impulse, are entirely believable. If there is any problem in the narrative relating to both suitors, it’s that we only see them through Kya’s eyes, rather than being given true insight into their ambitions, but you can hardly fault a movie taking the point-of-view of the heroine for expecting her to have a clearer picture of what would-be romancers would rather hide.

The early scenes, depicting abuse of the young Kya (JoJo Regina) at the hands of her alcoholic father (Garret Dillahunt) and her disillusion and fear as one by one she is abandoned by mother and brothers are especially powerful, nobody departing without a cut or a bruise, as if carrying a paternal brand.

The whole picture is such an immersive experience, understanding insects and shellfish as Kya’s wealth of knowledge grows, fearing for her involvement with any man, her inexperience inevitably faulting her choice. And yet she grows through bad experience until she gains the self-reliance to see her through.

Daisy Edgar-Jones, best known for the television mini-series Normal People (2020) does wonders with a difficult role, never playing the sympathy card. It’s always a delight to see a veteran like David Strathairn (Nomadland, 2020) get his teeth into a meaty role. And it’s refreshing to see neither of the young men, Taylor John Smith (Blacklight, 2022) and British actor Harris Dickinson (The King’s Man, 2021) favoring the grandstanding approach, delivering largely subtle performances.

Restrained performances too from Sterling Macer Jr. (Double Down, 2020) and Michael Hyatt (The Little Things, 2021) while Garret Dillahunt (Ambulance, 2022) continues to do admirable work.

Most credit goes to Olivia Newman (First Match, 2018) for creating a fascinating well-paced picture that allows the actors to breathe and refuses to fall into the trap of delivering a bloated adaptation of a bestseller. And in part this is down to calling in for screenplay duty Lucy Alibar, who has form in this area through Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012).

This has all the hallmarks of a classic sleeper.