'On Swift Horses' Races Toward Sentimental Mediocrity
What a bland, emotionless mess. On Swift Horses has about as much romantic chemistry as watching paint dry. The film is trying to say something about living with duality. It's a tale about two couples who have trouble discovering love, unsure of who they really love or what they're searching for. The film is so disengaging that it's difficult to keep your consciousness going when it's playing. It's so occupied with hooking characters up that it has little time, despite its full two-hour length, to establish why these characters love or don't love each other. It's an exercise in relationship building that says little of anything of significance to warrant any feeling of value.
Director Daniel Minahan's period tale begins with a slow start, with an opening credits crawl featuring photos of people throughout their lives. Why it's in the film doesn't make much sense until we reach the final scene that had as much of an "aha" realization as a cheesy poem written by an amateur. In 2025, do we really still need long opening credits? They do little to establish the mood while failing to just start the story. Some filmmakers can still pull off opening credits, while others, like Mr. Minahan, use it as a great excuse to go to the bathroom while not missing anything. After the opening crawl of nostalgic photos, the picture gets straight into business, cutting to Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) having sex with her partner Lee (Will Poulter); intercutting with their affair is Lee's brother Julius (Jacob Elordi) traveling to Kansas to meet them. After Lee and Muriel finish, Lee proposes to Muriel. When Julius arrives, there's a forced romantic chemistry between him and Muriel that comes straight out of a cheesy romantic novel's playbook.
In an attempt to end an argument between the two brothers, Muriel offers to dance to some house music. While dancing with Muriel, Julius asks her if she knows what love is as he proceeds to hit on his brother's fiancée. Unphazed by how inappropriate Julius' advances are despite only being minutes into the film, Muriel flirts along with him, establishing from early on that she's not a trustworthy person. As the story progresses, everyone starts hooking up with each other like it's the cast from The White Lotus. The story jumps from Kansas to California, building on two plots that do lead somewhere, but it takes until the final thirty minutes to actually pay off on anything.
The film cuts between Julius in Las Vegas and Muriel in California. In Vegas, Julius falls in love with Henry (Diego Calva) as the two work as security for a casino while living together. Meanwhile, in California, Muriel is trying to buy a house with Lee while also making her money from gambling on horse races. Here's where the dullest part of the plot comes in. When trying to secure her home, Muriel meets Sandra (Sasha Calle), a fellow homeowner who romances Muriel because everyone in this film, outside of Lee, is unfaithful. Julius sends semi-romantic letters to Muriel while Muriel cheats on her husband with another woman. Does Muriel love Lee, or does she love Sandra? Is Julius in love with Henry, or does his heart belong to Muriel?
Bryce Kasse's script, based on Shannon Pufahl's book, seems like a faithful adaptation of a romantic novel that I'm sure is acclaimed, but leaves little lasting impression on me. The movie addresses love with gambling. Julius works in a casino, while Muriel rolls the dice in her life on horse races. Both people are in love with partners of the same sex while still having feelings for someone of the opposite sex. They question who they love as they risk losing everything. If only I knew why they had these conflicting feelings. It's about us being unsure of ourselves and choosing to take chances on everything we have in order to discover where our hearts truly lie. The movie is so occupied with mushy dialog on intercutting themes that it fails to have any of them resonate. A good love story makes us understand the reason our characters love each other, or find the chemistry between the characters, not just because it's the name for whoever is supposed to make out on the call sheet.
The film reaches an underwhelming catharsis in its final act. The story isn't necessarily terrible, just painfully underdeveloped. It's not cliche; that's not the problem. The problem is how unfaithful these characters are at the drop of a hat, rendering them unlikable. You could argue that Julius is in love with Muriel. Or that Muriel wants to adhere to the conventional idea of a married woman's life while not accepting the life she really wants to live. All good points. But when there's nothing real bubbling between actors in a story that doesn't go anywhere interesting, the film is no more romantic than a Hallmark postcard.
