There's nothing swift about the handsomely crafted but dramatically inert period piece On Swift Horses. Director Daniel Minahan's adaptation of Shannon Pufahl's 2019 novel is full of yearning and longing, but light on anything below the surface of the characters' soulful expressions. The stars look gorgeous while pouting and gazing, but the appeal of attractive people in sensual embraces can only carry the movie for so long.
Still, Minahan clearly knows what he's doing when he has Jacob Elordi's Julius immediately pop off his shirt as he lounges on the hood of a truck outside the rural Kansas home of his brother Lee (Will Poulter) and Lee's fiancée, Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones). There's still snow on the ground, but that doesn't stop Julius from airing out his pecs, which catches the eye of both Muriel and the audience. Julius has shown up unannounced after receiving an early military discharge, and he arrives to celebrate Christmas before Lee has to return to the Korean War front.
The war proves to be surprisingly incidental to the story, though, which is not about dealing with PTSD or readjusting to civilian life. Six months later, Lee and Muriel are married and living in San Diego, where Lee works in a vaguely defined factory job and Muriel is a waitress at a café frequented by bettors from a nearby horse track. Although he promised to join them in California, Julius instead heads to Las Vegas, where he gets a job spotting cheaters at a local casino.
Muriel soon takes advantage of her workplace eavesdropping to make big bets on horse races, and Julius spends as much time hustling card sharps as he does observing them. Their mutual interest in gambling isn't the only thing they have in common, and it's mostly used as a metaphor for the more personal risks they take as they explore queer life in the 1950s.
Julius is more self-aware about his sexuality, and it's not hard to figure out the reason he was kicked out of the Army before serving a full tour. In Las Vegas, he meets Henry (Diego Calva), a Mexican immigrant and fellow poker hustler, and their romance takes them from the bedroom to the card table, with increasingly risky schemes to cheat at the same games they're supposed to be protecting.
It takes a little longer for Muriel to acknowledge her burgeoning feelings, but she too experiences a sexual awakening while making a wager, encountering a flirty blonde trophy wife at the track who gives her a matchbook for a local gay bar. She's even more drawn to Sandra (Sasha Calle), the neighbor who lives just outside the prefab planned community where Muriel and Lee move after saving up some money.
So it goes, slowly back and forth, as Julius and Muriel write letters to each other, obliquely referencing their individual dalliances but keeping their true feelings — including for each other — hidden. Meanwhile, Lee is almost laughably oblivious, expecting to build a harmonious family home with his devoted wife and supportive brother. Poulter delivers one heartfelt, understated speech late in the film that shows the depth of Lee's compassion, but the character is such an absurd doormat for much of the time that there's no tension in Muriel's efforts at secrecy and repression.
It's refreshing to see queer characters in this era allowed to experience joy and love, but neither pair of lovers has much romantic chemistry. Minahan doesn't shy away from explicit sexuality, and he gives viewers ample opportunity to ogle his actors' sculpted physiques. At the same time, much of the movie's visual style comes across as a hermetically sealed curio, whether that's the flimsy-looking recreations of Vegas and Tijuana or the fashion shoot-ready sex scenes. It's not surprising that Minahan has spent almost his entire career as a prolific TV director, as On Swift Horses has the polished, anonymous feel of a Netflix TV pilot.
The respective journeys of Julius and Muriel toward self-actualization are clumsy and obvious, despite the actors' best efforts to give them emotional resonance. On Swift Horses' most affecting moment has essentially nothing to do with the main characters, as the camera pans across a crowded bulletin board at a San Diego hotel that serves as hub for the gay community. The posted photos and notes encompass romantic declarations, tender memorials, and entreaties to lost lovers. That brief montage says more about the queer struggle of the time period than anything else in the movie.
"You've got your secrets and I've got mine," Julius yells at Muriel during a pivotal confrontation, and the dialogue from screenwriter Bryce Kass rarely rises beyond that level of cliché. Minahan aims for the simmering passion of queer period pieces like Brokeback Mountain or Carol, but he ends up only with tepid titillation.
On Swift Horses
Rated R
Directed by Daniel Minahan
Starring Jacob Elordi, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Will Poulter
