Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Daniel Minahan
Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter, Diego Calva, Sasha Calle
I've never bought into the idea that an actor should only play a character with whom they share a lived experience. I obviously draw the line at blackface, and it often bugs me when British actors struggle with American accents, but in general I'm of the view that if an actor can convince in the role they're right for the part. That said, this adaptation of a 2019 novel by Shannon Pufahl leaves you with the impression that everyone involved is simply cosplaying rather than acting. Here have straight actors failing to convince as gay characters, Brits and Aussies failing to convince as Americans, and very modern actors failing to convince as products of post-war America. The film itself is cosplaying as a 1950s melodrama, with a "what if homosexuality could have been portrayed on screen in that censorious era?" twist.
In rural Kansas of the 1950s we find unwed couple Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Lee (Will Poulter). On the day that Muriel finally accepts the latest of several marriage proposals, Lee's wayward and shirtless brother Julius (Jacob Elordi) shows up, having been discharged from Korea. Lee and Julius have a plan to move to California and set up a business together, but first Lee has to return to Korea to serve his final six months in the military, leaving Julius to look after Muriel.
If you think you know where this is going, you're probably wrong. You might be expecting two young people who look like Jacob Elordi and Daisy Edgar-Jones to succumb to an adulterous affair, but you'd be wide of the mark. Julius is gay, and rather than joining Lee and Muriel in California he heads to Vegas to make it on his own. At this point the film follows two narrative paths. One sees Julius take a job spying on the customers of a casino while romancing Henry (Diego Calva), a Mexican co-worker who tries to inveigle Julius in his plot to use the tricks they've learnt in their job to cheat at card games themselves. The other plot strand follows Muriel as she lives a secret life, gambling at a local track using tips she's picked up from the professional gamblers that frequent the diner where she waitresses. Muriel also has her own homosexual awakening, frequenting a gay bar following an encounter with a statuesque lesbian gold digger (Kat Cunning) and enjoying secret encounters with her new neighbour (Sasha Calle).
Elordi's plotline is more convincing, mainly because Elordi and Calva have the sort of dangerous chemistry you might have found between the leads of a steamy film noir. There's a palpable vulnerability to Elordi's Julius that simply isn't present in Edgar-Jones's Muriel. We always fear that something terrible is about to happen to Julius, and he receives more than one beating during the course of the film, but Muriel seems to glide through her newfound bisexual adventures with nary a care in the world. We never feel like Muriel is in any danger of getting caught, or that Lee might even pose any danger to her if she were exposed (Lee is such a nothing-burger character that we simply don't know what to make of him). Edgar-Jones plays the role like a confident woman who has been living this taboo life for years, rather than someone who just recently got seduced by it. It's near impossible to buy her as a product of '50s working class America.
Stories of sexual discovery have become passé by this point, so they really have to add a new dimension to capture our interest. A suburban wife suddenly deciding she wants to double her options just isn't very interesting, especially when it's delivered in such a bland presentation. Far more intriguing is the idea of such a person becoming seduced by the world of high stakes gambling, but the film doesn't seem to share that view. While the gambling subplot distracts from the gay romance in Julius's plotline, the gay romance distracts from the gambling in Muriel's. The result is a film comprised of two plotlines it fails to commit to in any satisfying manner.
On Swift Horses is in UK/ROI cinemas from September 5th.
