On Swift Horses

On Swift Horses presents a potent picture of the faultlines simmering below the American surface.

Elordi and Edgar-Jones give On Swift Horses a solid core, and the expansive plotting develops their characters into people worth caring (and crying) about.

It can feel a bit diagrammatic, as if the novelist were setting up impossible loves and then watching them fail. But there’s hope too, and... there’s poetry in watching someone betting their future on yet another horse.

On Swift Horses is the kind of big, sweeping romantic drama that Hollywood just doesn’t make anymore.

What starts as a simple love story is anything but, and the beautiful, sometimes painful, unraveling is wonderfully eye-catching and emotional.

It is a story of subterfuge, secrets and recognitions hardly ever spoken out loud. And it works much better as an idea than as a film.

It would be easy — but also wrong — to say nothing of note happens in On Swift Horses. That sense of nebulousness at the end won't be met with wide approval or great acclaim, but it's hard to imagine this story ending any other way.

Edgar-Jones masterfully captures the innate struggle of trying to find happiness in a world diametrically opposed to queer joy.

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.

Daniel Minahan’s film lacks passion. Not exploring sexuality in a fresh or even engaging way, On Swift Horses is a pretty idea of a film rather than a thoughtful examination.