Directed by: Daniel Minahan
Written by: Bryce Kass, based on Shannon Pufahl’s book
Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter, Diego Calva, and Sasha Calle
Runtime: 117 minutes
‘On Swift Horses’ might win, place, or show as a series
Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Lee (Will Poulter) live in a one-horse town in Kansas just after the Korean War, but they gallop toward big plans.
Well, Lee is. Muriel is content to live in her Kansas-rooted ranch home, which she inherited from her mother.
Lee and his younger brother, Julius (Jacob Elordi), planned on building a life in California. Julius arrives in Kansas to rendezvous with his kin and Muriel, and he emits alluring vibes with the young, attractive homeowner, especially at first sight, sitting in the front yard without his shirt.
Director Daniel Minahan immediately introduces a potential romantic conflict, but “On Swift Horses” ponies up into different relationship mysteries that consume the thoughts of two of the three co-leads. The story – based on Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 book and written for the screen by Bryce Kass – delves into secrets and explorations that break conventional 1950s norms, and the characters cope with the tolls that are taken.
Edgar-Jones, Poulter, and Elordi are convincing players in this 20th-century romantic drama. Muriel feels lost and trapped in unwanted prospects, while Lee doesn’t notice and constantly pushes positive energy into his hopes forged by American ideals. Meanwhile, Julius lives a lie, and his line of work basks in falsehoods too. Cinematographer Luc Montpellier, costume designer Jeriana San Juan, and production designer Erin Magill beautifully and compellingly capture a period when the Greatest Generation conjured possibilities and realized them through ambition and golden opportunities.
For instance, a few thousand dollars can buy you a plot of land and a homestead on a spacious Southern California prairie, “lightyears” before 2025’s suburban sprawl, freeway gridlock, and “dead shopping malls (that) rise like mountains beyond mountains” (thank you, Arcade Fire).
Unfortunately, “On Swift Horses” suffers from its own construction as the film devotes (relatively) equal time to two primary narratives, but these distinct threads don’t satisfyingly intertwine or deliver on “promised” payoffs (at least, eluded payoffs) during the first act.
Muriel and Lee reach SoCal to start anew, but Julius stops in Las Vegas instead, where both parties spend the vast majority of the 117-minute runtime.
Granted, Kass’ screenplay ensures that in-person contact transpires between the three again, but these limited, unsatisfying touchpoints disappoint rather than reward. Muriel and Lee (as a couple) and Julius struggle in their separate individual journeys, as Minahan frequently alternates between California and Nevada throughout the picture.
Meanwhile, the potential for a collective emotional tussle under the same roof or at least in the same state feels like a better choice for this two-hour picture, especially with a compelling, conflicting start in Kansas.
In California, Muriel resigns herself to following Lee into a suburban existence. Although she works “9-to-5”, this is a divergence from the era’s stereotypes. She suffers in silence to get along. Lee isn’t an ogre. Far from it, but their home life is his aspiration, not Muriel’s. She reaches out from her mundane world to find sparks in the form of betting on horses at the track and a new friendship with their neighbor, Sandra (Sasha Calle in an intriguing supporting performance). Muriel trots into these new emotional spaces, the most dynamic plot points in “On Swift Horses”.
Conversely, Julius wanders into Vegas without direction on his faulty and undependable moral compass, as this disreputable gambler never knows when to stop unless it’s to accept responsibility. He seems doomed for inevitable failure, and working in a Las Vegas hotel doesn’t seem to bode like a career that will change his fortunes.
Although Muriel and Julius reside in separate states and storylines, they discover taboo relationships (during the Eisenhower administration), and keeping these connections private raises the primary theatrical tension in both locales.
This critic didn’t read Pufahl’s book, but it seems better served as a series with episodes spent entirely in either SoCal or Sin City to let the material and relationships breathe and deliberately muddle through this bygone era’s institutional resistance. In an 8-hour small-screen project, the prospects of dramatic confidences becoming revealed could ebb and flow, as could the sway between the triad’s imperfect bonds.
The “On Swift Horses” film version delivers its intended emotive messages but with too many pages seemingly left out of the theatrical experience, as the movie’s pacing oddly feels too leisurely. Then again, in one scene, Julius suddenly and randomly appears with an arbitrary four-legged companion, a horse, in a possible attempt to link to Muriel’s racetrack experiences and also the movie and book title. Instead, this moment tracks with all the authenticity of Monopoly money at a poker table, and so does the clumsiest ending of 2025 so far.
Well, “On Swift Horses” does finish its two-hour race with value and good intentions, but it might win, place, or show as a series.
Jeff’s ranking
2/4 stars
