Review: On Swift Horses (2024)
A gorgeous first feature explores the lives of two brothers and the against-the-grain wife of one of them
On Swift Horses (2024)
Directed by Daniel Minahan
I hate to lead with a spoiler alert, but in this case it’s important. In my opinion, it’s better for you to see this movie with only the barest of notions what it’s about:
Two brothers are on leave from the Navy during the Korean War. The older brother Lee (Will Poulter) is boffing his fiancée Muriel, as the younger brother Julius (Jacob Elordi) is headed their way. Lee is conventional, able to see little in his future besides an American Dream of a house, a wife, and a job; Julius is not so much a nonconformist as he is an inhabitant of “another world than us,” to use Lee’s phrase.
Julius is also very beautiful in a big dumb handsome hunk sort of way (though his character isn’t dumb except in the ways that matter when you’re 25 or so and about to become an adult); he has no physical resemblance to his older brother whatsoever. He looks like the gorgeous trainer in a high-end gym whom all the middle-aged ladies wouldn’t mind paying to sleep with. Lee, on the other hand, has a narrow, freckled face, resembling no one as much as Howdy Doody, and he’s not helped by a pale red pompadour.
This is all to say that once Julius walks in the door, Muriel is extremely distracted. The two have an instant connection, and Julius — displaying an insight that is one of the attributes that makes his character much more than a dumb hunk — within a few hours of meeting Muriel, tells her “You see right through it” — meaning the standard American life and future that Lee represents. Nevertheless, she says yes to Lee’s marriage proposal.
From this premise, you might think that Julius and Lee are the main characters, but they aren’t — it’s Julius and Muriel. And not for the obvious reason; the love triangle setup is only the first of the clever misdirections that the movie, scripted by Bryce Kass from a novel by Shannon Pufahl, has in store. And Muriel does see through it all, and proves herself both resourceful and capable of leading a double life.
There, that ought to be enough to get you to the movie. You’ll be glad you did. Unfortunately, this indie movie is having a very limited release in theaters, so go TODAY if you read this, I mean April 30 to May 2. It won’t be around much longer anywhere.
Spoilers from here.
As you might have gathered from my insistence on not spoiling the film for you, there are some genuine narrative surprises in the movie, and the pleasure of encountering them as a viewer is one you should experience. But I can’t talk about what the movie is really about without revealing them.
From the first, the movie drops hints that Julius isn’t what he seems. The first hint is that he’s been discharged from the Navy and doesn’t have to go back, whereas Lee is on a 72-hour Christmas leave and expects to shortly find himself back in Korea. Julius announces this fact without elaborating, almost as if he’s daring his brother to ask questions. But Lee doesn’t, because the answer to why and how Julius has been discharged is something Lee implicitly already knows but can’t talk about, even with Julius. Muriel watches this exchange mutely; there’s no sign she understands either. But by the end of the movie we’ll not only understand that Julius is gay, but that Muriel is too.
As it turns out, the last two-thirds of the movie are dedicated to exploring the ways queer people, who were almost universally closeted during the era (1952-1957) in which the film is set, lived double lives. Julius lives his life on the margins of society as a card shark and a thief, and Muriel is passing as the perfect American housewife — though the story cleverly posits her and Lee’s starter home in a new development outside San Diego where none of the other new houses have been completed yet, so we don’t get any of the other-suburban-moms pushing baby carriages.
Their only neighbor, it seems, is a comely short-haired Latina, Sandra (Sasha Calle), who is obviously cut from the same cloth as every appealing working-class butch lesbian in every queer-friendly movie ever (“Desert Hearts” (1985), “Bound” (1996), “Love Lies Bleeding” (2024 )): short dark hair, practical, handy, seductive, excellent boundaries. Muriel seeks in Sandra authenticity and passion, but the movie is full of so many little surprises that their sexual affair doesn’t seem inevitable until the scene where it starts.
As usual, I’ve left the best performance until last. Daisy Edgar-Jones’ performance as Muriel is just terrific. A lot of it’s the writing, of course: her character is fascinating. But Edgar-Jones has a gaze that’s both searching and, as Julius says, penetrating — she “sees through” people and situations, but this trait is founded in an abiding curiosity. And the role has range. Muriel is a happy housewife, a cool, lipsticked bettor on horses, and a passionate lover, and the brilliance of Edgar-Jones’ acting is that the viewer is confident that there are even more personas inside Muriel. Watching her work is a genuine pleasure.
This is the first feature by director Daniel Minehan, but his IMDB page shows his deep experience in TV. His direction is superb, giving viewers exactly what’s needed in each scene, while only rarely venturing into the sheerly poetic.
Again, highly recommended. But don’t wait.
Just got tickets for this film for tomorrow. Thanks for the review!!