On Swift Horses (dir. Daniel Minahan)

by Jack Martin | Sep 7, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 119 mins

UK Distributor: Sony Pictures

UK Release Date: 5 September 2025

WHO’S IN ON SWIFT HORSES?

Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter, Diego Calva, Sasha Calle, Kat Cunning, Don Swayze

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Daniel Minahan (director, producer), Bryce Kass (writer), Mollye Asher, Michael D’Alto, Tim Headington, Theresa Steele Page and Peter Spears (producers), Mark Orton (composer), Luc Montpellier (cinematographer), Robert Frazen, Joe Murphy and Kate Sanford (editors)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A couple (Edgar-Jones and Poulter) find their new lives disrupted by unlikely forces…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON ON SWIFT HORSES?

If you’ve happened to come across any of the trailers or promotional stills for director Daniel Minahan’s On Swift Horses, which show Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi making what looks like oogly eyes at one another, don’t be so easily fooled: this is not a romance. At least, not between them. Or between members of their opposite sex.

The adaptation of Shannon Pufahl’s novel of the same name has come under a bit of fire lately for playing down, or sometimes not even mentioning, the queer nature of not one but two of its protagonists in the marketing, which some feel to be misrepresentative of the story as well as a cynical ploy to draw in a more conservative (i.e. less gay-friendly) crowd. Either way, it’s a shame that queer narratives such as this aren’t allowed to be promoted so honestly among mainstream audiences, though in the case of On Swift Horses, a fine enough feature that does its job and nothing more, the straightwashing aspect of the marketing is one of the more interesting things about the actual movie.

Set in 1950s America, the film begins with Kansas couple Muriel (Edgar-Jones) and Lee (Will Poulter) receiving an unexpected visit from Lee’s brother Julius (Elordi) in time for Christmas, with the three of them soon making plans to move out to California and lead more prosperous lives together. Cut to six months later, when Muriel and Lee have made the leap and bought a neat property in San Diego, but Julius, ever the drifter, has buggered off to Las Vegas where he quickly lands a job in a casino as effectively the prototype for CCTV, spying on potentially cheating gamblers from the hidden ceiling compartments. There, Julius takes a lover in fellow surveillor Henry (Diego Calva) as they try to hustle their way to a comfortable life together, while back in San Diego Muriel finds herself drawn to winning big money on horserace betting and, more notably, her new neighbour Sandra (Sasha Calle).

There isn’t a whole lot about On Swift Horses that’s necessarily awful, or even that bad. It’s competently made, well-acted, has a decent enough pace, and on occasion elicits an earned emotional reaction. However, there also isn’t that much else to the film, as little about it stands out from numerous other movies with this subject matter and period setting combo, with the expected elements more or less falling into place just as they’re expected to, and that’s it. The film mainly just exists, adding little if anything to the conversation about the stifled nature of young queer people in a time when such self-expression could lead to persecution or worse, and ultimately leaving the viewer with not that much to think or talk about with others afterward.

The reason it’s not a total bore, however, lies within the strong turns among the cast. Both Edgar-Jones and Elordi are highly watchable, the former in particular impressing in a role that could easily have been played by Anne Hathaway a decade or so ago (hell, she looks so similar to the Oscar-winner here that I’m surprised she’s not yet been cast as her near-identical sister in a movie), and while among the three leads he’s playing perhaps the least rounded character, Poulter has a couple of standout moments that showcase the formidable actor he’s become over the years. It’s also nice to see Calva in more stuff after his breakout role in the criminally underrated Babylon, while it’s good to know that Calle has far more emotional range than The Flash made it out to seem (one of that movie’s many evils).

Behind the camera, Minahan has a firm enough grasp on the production. Given that he is primarily a television director, having made episodes of shows like Game of Thrones, True Blood and Grey’s Anatomy, there is certainly a televisual vibe to his film, but he paces it well enough to just about hold your interest amidst the borderline soap opera plotting going on. Cinematographer Luc Montpellier also creates some luscious landscape imagery that makes it all look appropriately cinematic, all set to a pleasant musical score by Mark Orton which comes in and out when it needs to. All in all, it’s a handsomely made film, but it is Bryce Kass’s script that struggles to hold it all together, as it barely clings onto a narrative thread before unceremoniously jumping onto the next one, such as a couple of gambling sub-plots that at first seem like they’re going to take up a lot of the movie but are suddenly dropped when they’re no longer necessary. Kass isn’t able to provide a strong enough hook among all these intersecting plots to give it the appropriate spark, leaving them to wallow in Douglas Sirk-style melodrama that largely goes nowhere.

As for the queer content, there are certainly some passionate scenes with Edgar-Jones and Elordi and their respective on-screen lovers, and they provide some of the film’s most layered moments in terms of performance and writing. But there are much better 50s-set queer dramas that you could be watching instead, like the Todd Haynes double-feature of Carol and Far from Heaven (both produced by Christine Vachon, an executive producer on this film) which also took on melodramatic angles but much more effectively and with greater lasting power than On Swift Horses ever will. Here, such themes are certainly prominent, but ultimately not much that you haven’t seen before in other, more memorable movies.

In the end, On Swift Horses just exists as a fine movie, but really nothing more than that, for it simply gallops through the motions without adding enough interesting elements to set itself apart from the crowd.

SO, TO SUM UP…

On Swift Horses is a passable queer melodrama that’s competently made and rather well-acted, but the script isn’t able to form a compelling enough hook around a meandering narrative that ultimately says or does little that is new.