On Swift Horses Review: Untapped Potential

While On Swift Horses is full of star power, the film is slighted by a busy plot, rushed pace and a lack of historical context.

While she manages to narrowly escape the conversation once more, slipping into the bathroom for a secret cigarette, she notices a tall, shirtless man resting on the car outside her house. Shocked by his lack of clothing in the dead of winter, but intrigued by his calm demeanor, Muriel comes to learn this man is Lee’s brother Julius (Jacob Elordi, of Oh, Canada). 

When Muriel invites Julius inside, he propositions her to a game of poker. While they don’t have much time together before Lee finally rises and makes his way downstairs to greet his brother, the two establish an immediate and nuanced understanding of each other and their tendency to keep secrets in order to protect themselves from a society that doesn’t quite know what to make of them. It’s clear that Julius is able to see Muriel in a way Lee cannot and vice versa. They seem to be able to see each other in a way no one else in the world has been able to.

The two brothers are on leave from serving in the Korean War and while they had plans to pool their discharge money to get a house together in California after the war, Julius’s unexpected dismissal from the army dashes those hopes. In a moment of pity or perhaps after finally being worn down by his asking, Muriel accepts Lee’s marriage proposal and makes plans to move out to California with him after he is discharged. Muriel agrees with the idea that Julius will follow them out there once he’s made the money to pay his own way. 

Months later, Lee and Muriel are finally living in San Diego and working to earn an honest living. Lee and Julius were raised with a very unstable home life and Lee has decided to dedicate his life to making sure he is able to raise a family in a stable environment. When Lee and Muriel move out to San Diego, everything Lee does is in pursuit of this dream. However, Muriel slowly realizes her husband’s dream is not one she is fully devoted to. While he has big aspirations of buying a home and becoming a father, Muriel’s investment in her marriage and new life falters. 

She remains in contact with Julius through letter correspondence and reveals she has secretly taken up horse betting to try and earn some money of her own. At this point, Julius has made his way to Las Vegas, wanting to try his luck in a new city after being caught trying to cheat poker games in smaller cities. Once he arrives in his first casino, he realizes he’ll never be able to pull one over on the house here and instead asks for a job, seeing as he knows firsthand how people cheat. He gets hired to work pit surveillance at the casino, which is where he meets Henry (Diego Calva, of Babylon), his mysterious and enticing coworker. 

Back in San Diego, Muriel and Lee finally have the money to put down on a house. Muriel says she got the money from selling her mother’s home in Kansas, no mention of her success in horse betting, and the two move into the developing suburbia. Muriel meets a nearby neighbor, Sandra (Sasha Calle, of In the Summers), whose family has lived in the area for generations and is immediately drawn to her self-assured nature. As the film progresses, both Julius and Muriel must figure out how to manage burgeoning relationships with Henry and Sandra in a world that will not allow them to be together. 

At its core, On Swift Horses is a film about identity and the ways in which we lie to ourselves to avoid the pain of facing the truth. Julius and Muriel are intrigued with one another because they not only see the parts of themselves they are hiding from the rest of the world, but also identify with the feeling of being forced to be someone they are not. While they both love Lee, he cannot see them for who they are but rather sees them for who he thinks they should be. 

Lee thinks Muriel should be a housewife and a mother, and doesn’t understand that life will never emotionally fulfill her. Lee thinks Julius should find a place to settle down in San Diego so he can keep an eye on him, but can’t comprehend why Julius refuses to do so.

Henry and Sandra, on the other hand, see the versions of Muriel and Julius that our protagonists long to be. Muriel wants to be a free woman who earns her own money and drives her own car and answers to herself above all else. Julius wants to be soft and tender and let someone into his life for once, without worrying about the consequences of doing so. 

While the plot and story of On Swift Horses are interesting, important and intricate, the film fails to find its bite. This can largely be attributed to its inconsistent pacing. There is so much plot to pack into the movie’s runtime and it’s done in such a way that it ends up rushing through all of its most potent moments. Insightful lines and profound realizations feel trampled over by the film’s editing in what I can only assume was done in an effort to keep its runtime under two hours. 

On Swift Horses also relies too heavily on the audience’s understanding of how dangerous being in a same-sex relationship in 1950s America could have been for both parties. There is barely any historical context ever actually shown within the film to explain what is really on the line for Julius and Muriel if they are caught. Without this, there is no real imminent sense of danger built to back up the heightened anxiety the movie seems to want you to be experiencing alongside its main characters. 

Unfortunately, the pacing also steps on the stellar performances from Daisy Edgar-Jones, Will Poulter, Jacob Elordi and Diego Calva. Calva and Sasha Calle’s performances, as well as their characters’ storylines, truly suffer the most from this rushed pacing. The audience is given little to no time to get to know them and understand the immediate connection between Julius and Henry, as well as Muriel and Sandra, outside of pure sexual desire, which is not what ends up sustaining these beautiful relationships. 

The pressure to fit this epic story into a condensed timeline takes away from the building of these characters’ inner worlds and the nuances of their relationships. Even Lee, who is set up to be one of the most important characters right after our two protagonists, Julius and Muriel, feels forgotten by the story at times. While it is understandable that the plot would favor the events directly impacting Julius and Muriel, refusing to give any color to the lives of the characters that interact with them the most makes their relationships seem unbelievable and difficult to logically follow. 

The potential greatness of On Swift Horses is frustratingly just out of reach. This film feels like it is primed to be knocked out of the park with a cast of some of the most exciting young talent in Hollywood, depicting a delicate and nuanced story about identity and the gambles we take to try and live our lives to the best of our abilities. However, the story tries to accomplish too much in not enough time and with not enough conviction.

On Swift Horses is now available to watch in select theaters in the US and Canada.