- Starring
- Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter
- Writer
- Bryce Kass
- Director
- Daniel Minahan
- Rating
- n/a
- Running Time
- 117 minutes
- Release Date
- n/a
Overall Score
Rating Summary
This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.
Based on the book by Shannon Pufahl, On Swift Horses is the story about Muriel (Edgar-Jones) and her husband Lee (Poulter) as they leave their Kansas home in the hopes of making a new life for themselves in California. However, their lives change when Lee’s care-free brother Julius (Elordi) returned from the Korean War with no such plans for his future, choosing to live his life on the wild side. As Muriel and Lee landed in San Diego, Julius ended up in Las Vegas working pit surveillance at a casino. As Muriel and Julius corresponded with one another by mail, little did they realize that they perhaps had more in common than they thought as their journeys over the course of the film devolved as they turned to some questionable behavior in living secret taboo lives, gambling with their futures and threatening to put them in danger.
Featuring a great cast and an intriguing story, the film on paper had the potential to be incredibly engrossing if the filmmaking here had been stronger, making for a missed opportunity. While the cast gives it their all, the film fails to tell the story in a particularly engaging way. Sluggish, a lot of the character beats start to feel repetitive after a while. It simply fails to be gripping enough as it plays out is fairly predictable and safe manner. That being said, its lackluster screenplay isn’t the only thing holding it back. The film’s visual aesthetic also lacks any sort of interesting mis en scene. The first few minutes capture its 1950’s time period beautifully, with some stunning establishing shots and inspired needle drops. However, that vision is dropped as the plot kicks in, making the remainder feel like it was shot in the present day. It just lacks any sort of bold choices to make it stand out in any way.
Seeming content with being provocative for the sake of being provocative, the film forgets that it needs to be engaging on a story and character level. Ultimately, the characters feel dull and lack any sort of chemistry with one another. Also, the film’s messaging is confusing and feels incredibly muddled. Are audiences supposed to care to see these characters succeed despite the fact they are all terrible people? Complicated characters certainly can create an engaging film, but what is the take away from watching them here?
In the end, there is something about On Swift Horses that feels empty, creating a less than satisfying viewing experience. While it is a well put together film, it feels soulless as a whole, not taking any chances filmmaking wise and never giving audiences enough of a reason to care for its characters.
still courtesy of TIFF
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