EXCLUSIVE: Modern queer Western Lunar Sway follows a lone ranger looking for connection

The Western is a genre traditionally marked by solitude. They’re often the stories of lone rangers traversing wide open spaces, dead-set on personal missions of vengeance or validation.

That makes Lunar Sway a fascinating outlier: it follows the journey of a would-be cowboy who doesn’t quite know what he’s after—all he knows is that he’s tired of feeling so alone and will take a shot at connection wherever he can get it.

How about we take this to the next level?

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In the fictional, remote desert town of Mooncrest, Cliff (rising star Noah Parker) is a bit of an eccentric, spending his days working as a neon-sign maker and his nights flirting with anyone who will give him the time of day, whether bored locals or strangers passing through.

Then, one day, his estranged birth mother Marg (Gilmore Girls‘ Liza Weil) shows up out of the blue, eager to reconnect with the son she’s never really known. Curious and desperate for connection, Cliff welcomes her back into his life, and the pair quickly bond like no time has passed at all.

But, of course, Marg has come to town with plenty of baggage, dark secrets she’s been too afraid to unpack and ulterior motives she’ll do her best to keep hidden. And hot on her trail is a mysterious figure from her past, one who’s hellbent on revenge.

Before long, Cliff’s been swept up in Marg’s chaos as she drag him & his dentist boyfriend Stew (Big Little Lies‘ Douglas Smith) along on a wild, life-or-death road trip through the deset.

Also in the mix are the gruff Bailey (Dead Lover‘s Grace Glowicki) on the hunt for a bounty, and the alluring Jovi (Kaden Connors, who folks will certainly recognize as Sasha from Heated Rivalry), an artist with a proclivity for for working with models in the buff.

A modern Western with the style & mystery of a neo-noir and a darkly comedic touch of the surreal, Lunar Sway has drawn comparisons to the work of the Coen Brothers and David Lynch but with a distinctly queer edge that makes it a must-see for genre fans & LGBTQ+ cinephiles alike.

For writer/director Nick Butler (The Legacy Of Cloudy Falls), queerness is intrinsic to the story he set out to tell, crafting a love letter to anyone who’s ever felt like they didn’t fit in:

“All of the characters in this movie are misfits and it’s easy to find comedy in that and to poke fun at them,” he shares in a press statement. “But my hope is that by the end of the film, audiences will see themselves reflected in these strange loners, no matter how lost or misguided they are, and feel connected to the universal need to find connection.”

Inspired by his own experiences with unrequited love, he aimed to write a story that felt honest and real in its exploration of the messiness of the human experience, even as it frequently incorporates dreamlike imagery that makes it feel slightly out of step with our own world.

“Cliff is surrounded by con artists and liars and never knows what to believe, so it made sense to place him in a heightened reality where nothing is quite as it seems,” Butler adds. “This is a movie about looking for love in all the wrong places and the chaos, humor, romance and sadness that comes with that.”

Lunar Sway had its world premiere earlier this year at the BFI Flare LGBTQ+ Film Festival in London, and after an acclaimed run at fests around the globe, it’ll finally be available on digital TVOD platforms in the U.S. on November 10, courtesy of TLA Releasing.

There are also a series of special Q&A screenings coming up across the country, including the Bay Area on Nov. 6 (with Nick Butler & Liza Weil), NYC on Dec. 2 (with Butler & Weil), Houston on Dec. 4 (Butler & Weil), and New Orleans on Dec. 5 (with Douglas Smith joinining Butler & Weil).

In anticipation, Queerty is honored to share an exclusive first look at the brand new trailer for Lunar Sway—check it out below, and be sure to follow the film on Instagram for all the latest news & updates.

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