26-04-2025
On Swift Horses Review: Character Study with Shallow Characters
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) – On Swift Horses centers on three characters during the 1950s, and while the actors do an admirable job, the story fails to reveal any amount of depth to the characters' motivations.
Directed by Daniel Minahan, On Swift Horses stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, and Will Poulter. Poulter plays a traditionally minded Korean War veteran who returns home and dreams of buying a starter home in California. Meanwhile, his brother (Elordi) is closeted man who eventually moves to Las Vegas to seek his fortune. His wife (Edgar-Jones), who seems to have an unspoken connection with her brother-in-law, begins to experiment with gambling and a same-sex relationship once she moves to California.
Last week's review: Sinners
On Swift Horses looks very good. Luc Montpellier's cinematography is arresting and beautiful, and the costume (Jeriana San Juan) and production (Erin Magill) designs capture the fifties aesthetic perfectly. Though the actors are quite convincing as these characters, what the script does with the characters is shallow and a bit confused.
There are two plotlines of On Swift Horses. Edgar-Jones's character surreptitiously gambles on the local horse races with tips she picks up from overheard conversations at the diner where she works. Elordi's character also experiements with gambling in the high-stakes, dangerous casinos of Las Vegas. In both cases, the gambling only serves as a means of getting the characters from one plot event to another. In a film like this, which is ostensibly a character study, the gambling compulsion should come from something elemental to the characters, rather than just a minor plot contrivance.
Likewise, the same-sex relationships in this film are just normal affairs. Edgar-Jones's character falls for a local woman, and Elordi's character falls for a risk-taking man. The relationships are not woven into the tapestry of the 1950s, and the film ends up being a bland collection of psuedolove stories that could be set anywhere at any time. Even when secrets are inevitably revealed, some characters are far more accepting than they might have been during this time. And the film's conclusion relies on some pretty wild coincidences.
On Swift Horses is trying to be a character study, yet it doesn't deeply explore the characters or up the stakes of the drama. The result is a bland period piece that doesn't rely on the period or have anything revolutionary to say about now.
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