Strong Performances Keeps “Horsegirls” on Track | ForReel

Horsegirls is a unique film about a young woman’s journey to find her place in the world. It hits several beats that you will see coming along the way, but it gets there with some important distinctions and directions that you perhaps won’t. 

Margarita (Lillian Carrier) is 22 and autistic.  She lives with her mother, Sandy (Gretchen Mol) and is averse to working because she doesn’t want to wear “hard pants” (who does, though?), and she loves horses.  She can’t have her own, so she visits a local stable so often that she has been effectively banned. She is, in a word, a little childish.  Not selfish or thoughtless, but exaggerated in her mannerisms and blunt with her opinions, and unironic in her way of speaking. This sounds like it might be a caricature, but it comes right up to the edge without tipping over.  Margarita is a well-developed person in ways that we don’t often see in films like this, largely due to Lillian Carrier herself being on the spectrum. 

This is the most important and refreshing aspect of Horsegirls, where most of the time, autistic characters are created by people not on the spectrum, and end up being over the top. Margarita, on the other hand, is created with care and real-world experience, which informs the whole story. 

Link: https://thisisforreel.com/home/tribeca-2025-movie-review-strong-performances-keeps-horsegirls-on-track