ON SWIFT HORSES - Mark Reviews Movies

On Swift Horses, Sony Pictures Classics

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 24, 2025

All of the characters in On Swift Horses are decent, well-meaning people who just have the bad luck of putting the hope of fulfilling their dreams in the wrong people and being alive in the United States of the 1950s. These folks might actually be happy if they were honest with one another, but where would be the drama in that?

That's probably the biggest sticking point of screenwriter Bryce Kass and director Daniel Minahan's adaptation of Shannon Pufahl's novel. Yes, it's nice to see a group of characters who are all basically good people, but at some point, it leaves us to wonder why they can't see that quality in each other.

Take, for example, the relationship that more or less sets the story in motion. It's between two brothers, both of whom have served or will continue to serve in U.S. military in the ongoing Korean War. They're Lee (Will Poulter) and Julius (Jacob Elordi). Lee's the older brother with the usual dreams of buying a house in California, getting married, and raising a family in domestic bliss. He'd also like Julius to be there, too, if not living in the same home then at least having some place to call his own close enough to remain a closely knit family.

Julius, however, isn't the type, or if he is, the young brother isn't able to make that kind of dream a reality in this particular era. He has a secret, and while it's pretty simple, it does make his life pretty complicated at this point in time. Julius is gay or, possibly, bisexual, given the long looks he and Lee's girlfriend Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) share with each other when Julius returns from Korea to reunite with Lee and meet Muriel at her house in some field in Kansas.

Their relationship, by the way, is a wholly different one to dissect. By the end, it's difficult to tell if the filmmakers even know how they feel about each other, if there actually was or is or could be some kind of romantic connection between them, or why story even needs us to wonder that, when these characters' lives are more interesting and plenty complicated enough without the potential of such an obvious love triangle within them. It certainly makes us wonder just how sincere the movie actually is about its other conflicts, relationships, and characters, though.

Anyway, the brothers mostly allow their future plans—or the lack thereof—get between them. Lee and Muriel do move to California, but Julius stays behind, works as a gigolo to bored housewives, and, after convincing Muriel to send him some money to head out to California to join them, goes to Las Vegas instead. That's where we discover Julius' secret life, when he falls quickly for Henry (Diego Calva) while the two work catching cheaters at a casino. Meanwhile, Muriel has her own kind of awakening when she starts gambling on horse races and realizes she quite likes the attention of other women, especially her neighbor Sandra (Sasha Calle).

The story here mainly rambles in this way, showing us Muriel, Julius, and, sometimes, Lee trying to be happy but failing to really do so, out of fear of hurting someone else. This is certainly believable, especially when talking about sexuality and defying social norms during this period, but it's also a stretch, to return to the brothers, when Lee basically tells Muriel that he knows Julius' secret, doesn't see his brother any differently because of it, and almost envies the freedom Julius has to be himself. If either Lee or even Muriel—who writes to the brother frequently—passed along that information to Julius, a good portion of the conflict here could be easily resolved, but again, where's the drama in that?

What's strange, though, is how underwhelming the drama of this story and these relationships actually feels. Some of that is because it feels forced upon the characters, as much a matter of writing necessity as the oppressive culture of the era, but it's primarily on account of the movie's meandering and safe ways. It's not really about any particular character or bond, because the filmmakers want to give some sense of everyone—including Julius and Muriel's respective secret lovers—here. Because every one of those main characters is inherently good and mildly flawed, the only real barriers come from outside them—a world that doesn't believe that kind of love should be accepted or a screenplay that really wants us to become swept up in the classical melodrama of the piece.

The movie is almost too pleasant, despite the darker elements of prejudice and violence that emerge, for its own good, which is an odd thing to realize about a sweeping, old-fashioned melodrama. Despite some solid performances (Edgar-Jones as a woman who never wanted to become a housewife until she met a man she loved and now isn't so sure, Poulter as an ordinary guy who just wants an ordinary life, and Elordi as an effortlessly charming drifter), On Swift Horses is also too confused about its characters and its bigger intentions to succeed as that kind of emotionally bare storytelling.

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