Lee (Will Poulter) introduces his girlfriend Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) to his brother Julius (Jacob Elordi). Julius recognizes a fellow queer person and tries to give advice. She panics and hastily accepts Lee’s proposal of marriage. It’s the 1950’s and Lee wants the straight white male American Dream: job, wife, house, kid. Muriel can’t picture a life outside this template. Julius can. On Swift Horses charts their separate journeys across the country. The set up is promising. But Bryce Kass’s screenplay fails to capture the tension that made Shannon Pufahl’s novel a success. Director Daniel Minahan lacks the imagination to counter the adaptations’ shortcomings.
Friendships between queer women and men are rare in media. The trouble is that Lee and Julius rarely cross paths. Their relationship is forged through a series of letters. This leaves Edgar-Jones and Elordi in tropey parallel stories. They become addicted to gambling and meet underwritten love interests (Sasha Calle and Diego Calva). Poulter plays a sympathetic “Mr. Cellophane,” wondering why his queer family ignores him.
The film was marketed on Elordi’s sex appeal. But his love scenes are filmed chastely above the shoulders. We see more of Poulter as he trysts with his bored wife. Perhaps Elordi is fighting against his sex symbol image. But he feels miscast. His cagey performance is at odds with a character who’s written as a vulnerable romantic. He has more chemistry with his sister-in-law than his boyfriend. And we repeatedly watch Elordi cower before both lovers and assailants. Despite being told he’s a daredevil war hero. None of that jibes with the aggressive brutes Elordi made his name playing.
Edgar-Jones gives a more intriguing performance with less to do. The story provides minimal conflict on her journey to self-acceptance. Her gambling represents the risks queer people face in oppressive societies. The screenplay over-explains the concept.
Straight actors were once told that gay roles would destroy their careers. Now they’re considered a rite of passage for men transitioning to “serious” work. Daniel Radcliffe, Timothee Chalamet, and Harry Styles had their turn. Now Elordi can cross it off his bucket list. Fans of queer period dramas have better ones to choose from.
How to Get Away with Mordor covered this film in his article on the Toronto International Film Festival. You can find more of my reviews on The Avocado, Letterboxd and Serializd. My podcast, Rainbow Colored Glasses, can be found here.