On Swift Horses Review: Complicated Relationships Fuel This Slow But Steamy 1950s Queer Drama

Queer life in 1950s America meant gambling with some rough odds. There was always a chance your next hookup would turn out to be entrapment, always a risk that the bar you escape to would get raided by the police, always a possibility the wrong people would find out your secret and cause trouble. The new film "On Swift Horses," based on the book by Shannon Pufahl and directed by Daniel Minahan, makes this theme explicit by focusing on a variety of queer characters who are also literal gamblers.

Julius (Jacob Elordi) and Henry (Diego Calva) meet and fall in love in Las Vegas, working for a casino to catch players cheating at cards — a talent developed from personal experience with cheating. Over in San Diego, Julius' sister-in-law Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) also gets into gambling through betting on horse races, at the same time she starts to realize her interest in having affairs with other women. Lee (Will Poulter, in his second horse-related movie this spring after "Death of a Unicorn") has figured out that his brother Julius, who was discharged from the Korean War and rejected an offer to stay with him and Muriel, is queer. Lee tells his wife that his brother is "not like us" (you're forgiven if that DJ Mustard beat enters your head for a second when he says the line). Little does Lee know that Muriel is seeing their butch neighbor Sandra (Sasha Calle) on the side.

As if the love geometry wasn't complicated enough, Muriel also clearly has feelings for Julius, whom she takes on as a penpal. It's open for interpretation whether her feelings are a tragic bisexual crush, compulsory heterosexuality playing out in funny ways, or some indefinable expression of gay male-slash-lesbian solidarity. Narratively, "On Swift Horses" plays like a hybrid of Luca Guadagnino's two 2024 films: the complex relationships and game-playing of "Challengers" meets the period setting (including a trip to Mexico) and quiet loneliness of "Queer." It's less meandering than the latter but not as energizing as the former, a drama that holds one's interest but doesn't fully pop until a strong ending.

Much of the attention "On Swift Horses" is receiving has inevitably revolved around the fact it involves a lot of attractive actors having a lot of sexy interactions. You will become intimately familiar with Jacob Elordi and Diego Calva's physiques as Henry seduces Julius. Sex scenes might be rarer in movies these days, but director Daniel Minahan comes from the more sex-positive world of premium cable and streaming TV, with credits on the likes of "True Blood," "Game of Thrones," "American Crime Story," and, most relevantly for a graphic gay 1950s period piece, the first two episodes of "Fellow Travelers." The sex scenes in "On Swift Horses" are hot and passionate. The characters' social dates, including one where Henry and Julius celebrate "America" by watching a nuclear test together, are also memorable.

All five of the lead actors' performances feel incredibly real. Elordi and Daisy Edgar-Jones clearly communicate their characters' unspoken longings, while Calva and Sasha Calle radiate charisma as the more confident love interests. Will Poulter's literal straight man role is by far the least rewarding of the leads, but he succeeds at keeping Lee sympathetic despite how easy it would be to turn him into the story's villain.

If anything, it's the parts where the film ends up having to include villains beyond the general specter of societal conformity that feel the weakest. One confrontation with some Vegas mafia heavies felt like the least convincing scene in the movie — I'm not sure if it was the gangsters' acting, the obviousness of the writing, or even the too-clean cinematography that made the scene fall flat for me, but a moment that should feel like a gut-punch just felt rote. A lesser but similar sense of roteness pervades in a later confrontation scene that has an obvious thematic purpose but mainly seems to be there for the sake of pulling off a "Chekov's gun" moment.

For all the intrigue of its multiple relationship dramas and its depictions of underground gay life, "On Swift Horses" falls a bit short when it comes to a strong narrative drive and structure. This two hour film could have been tightened to 90 minutes to speed up the pace, or alternately expanded to a miniseries to further develop its many episodic incidents. As is, my interest began to wander as the film entered its final act, never fully involving even if it wasn't doing much explicitly wrong.

But then "On Swift Horses" finally achieves the emotional resonance it's been aiming for just a few minutes before the credits. I won't spoil what happens in the film's best scene, but I will say it brought up an aspect of pre-internet queer culture I'd never even thought about, one that highlights both the risks of the big metaphorical gamble and the love that makes the game worth playing despite that. I actually teared up. The ending that follows this great scene is one that's pretty silly if you think about it, but works as romantic melodrama carrying on the intensity of the previous scene. I only wish the film could have achieved that intensity a bit sooner.

"On Swift Horses" opens in theaters on April 25.