Lee (Will Poulter), Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones), and Julius (Jacob Elordi) plan their future together.
Photos: Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Review by Rebecca M. Alvin
Early in the film On Swift Horses, directed by Daniel Minahan, the character Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who has just avoided giving her boyfriend Lee (Will Poulter) a response to his marriage proposal sits and smokes a cigarette looking out the bathroom window. Outside, Julius (Jacob Elordi), her boyfriend’s brother calls up to her from below the window. They have a flirty introduction and the chemistry between them makes us think we know where the story is going to lead. But although the story does not lead in that familiar love triangle format, that sexual tension between Muriel and Julius is echoed between many different characters in this steamy, beautifully shot film about outsiders passing as insiders in 1950s America.
Lee and Julius are on leave from the military during the Korean War, and the plan is the three of them will go out to San Diego and buy a house once Muriel agrees to marry Lee. But right off the bat there are hints that this will not be as easy as Lee thinks. First, we learn that Julius has been discharged from the military, which means he will not get as much money from it. And then there is Muriel’s reluctance to marry Lee, and more importantly, to sell the Kansas home she grew up in, which her mother had left to her upon her death. Each character struggles with the expectations placed upon them, as they often conflict with their own deeper desires. While Lee wants nothing more than to settle down and make Muriel happy, with a marriage and a family, Muriel and Julius are restless souls with curiosities and dreams and desires that are anything but the settling-down type. When Julius decides to go to Las Vegas instead, the trio’s plan, which is really Lee’s plan, has to change, and we start to see Muriel and Julius exploring other interests and other people in order to address the inquietude inside them.
Aside from the obvious entertainment value of watching beautiful actors interact in sultry exchanges—sometimes outright sexual, but mostly in the coded statements and secretive behaviors of the time, there is an interesting commentary going on. There are no bad guys in On Swift Horses. The bad guy in the movie is the capitalist patriarchal system within which everyone must live. Not one character in the film is able to live out authentically what they want their lives to be within this system, no matter their race, gender, or sexuality, although the consequences for some are less harsh than others. In this way, the film combines the pleasures of watching all of these beautiful people and of enjoying this beautiful cinematography which features some truly stunning shots that stay with you, with a soft cultural critique but one that resonates with the thoughtful viewer.
All of the characters have some version of the American Dream within them, but they are hindered by the system itself and by their needs to behave inauthentic ways and reject their true selves in order to get by. Some simply give up on achieving their dreams. Some try to live their dreams by denying obstacles to it. And others see the only way to achieve their dreams is through subverting the system, turning capitalism in on itself.
The world of the characters comes alive as a lush portrait of a lost time, and yet it does so without the haze of a nostalgic filter as we see that while the characters often have more choices than they thought they had, the consequences of making choices that align with their authentic selves are real, and in some cases brutal. The film allows us to enjoy lavish imagery while still questioning the system within which the film is produced. It presents shades of sexuality and identity that are often simplified and categorized in American media in refreshingly multidimensional ways with layers and even contradictions to what people feel, who they’re attracted to, and the things they can cannot control about themselves and shouldn’t need to.
On Swift Horses opens at Waters Edge Cinema, Whalers Wharf, 237 Commercial St., Friday, April 25 and runs at least through May 1. For dates and showtimes call 508.487.FILM or visit provincetownfilm.org/cinema_films/on-swift-horses.
