In 'On Swift Horses,' a handsome trio stumbles into romance and messier feelings

What looks astatine archetypal glimpse to beryllium your modular postwar emotion triangle — made up of oil-and-water brothers and a cagey housewife — reveals itself to beryllium much similar a multi-faceted crystal of lust and longing successful the handsomely realized romanticist melodrama “On Swift Horses.”

Unpacking the apprehensions and opportunities of boom-time America arsenic laid retired successful Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 novel, manager Daniel Minahan gamely plants 1 ft successful Douglas Sirk territory portion glancing successful the absorption of Todd Haynes. But conscionable erstwhile the cardinal characters’ fascinating messiness achieves highest interest, you recognize this movie’s earnest commercialized shimmer is ne'er going to segue into a denser, darker poetry. It’s a good-looking movie astir sublimated lives and the request to interruption free, 1 that feels torn betwixt presenting the aboveground allure of those desires successful a repressive clip and exploring thing deeper.

For an hour, though, it has the popular and propulsion of a midcentury soap opera that benefits from R-rated frankness. Stifled Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) agrees to wed her beau, Lee (Will Poulter), backmost from a stint successful the Korean War, and uproot their Kansas lives to marque a spell of it successful sunny, shiny, expanding Southern California. Lee’s cynical cardsharp of a brother, Julius (Jacob Elordi), was meant to beryllium portion of that imagination move, but the telephone of gambling takes Julius to Las Vegas instead.

What for Lee is garden-variety disappointment astir not having household astir is, successful Muriel, a much intangible intersexual lack she can’t articulate beyond an involvement successful the entreaty of risk. A nicely understated anxiousness successful Edgar-Jones’ portrayal conveys her caller beingness successful suburban San Diego. Already bully astatine hiding cigarettes, Muriel starts lying astir her connection with Julius, portion keeping from Lee her winnings from racetrack bets (acting connected tips overheard astatine her diner job).

Julius, meanwhile, becomes a card-cheat spotter for a casino arsenic an enactment of atonement for his thieving ways — it’s casual to bargain Elordi’s instrumentality connected ’50s rogue sensitivity. But precocious successful the sweltering catwalks supra the gambling tables, helium meets sexy, forthright Tijuana transplant Henry (Diego Calva) and abruptly the different vein of concealment successful Julius’s cautious, cynical beingness — being cheery — is astatine hazard of breaking wide unfastened into a consuming passion. (Metaphor alert: Thrill-seeking Henry drags Julius retired to the godforsaken to ticker weaponry tests.) Dormant attractions successful Muriel are separately tested, too, by openly queer and governmental Latina neighbour Sandra (Sasha Calle), who upon archetypal gathering her, holds retired a thenar truthful Muriel, trying her archetypal olive, tin spit retired the pit. Someone’s database of secrets is astir to get longer.

Bryce Kass’ incident-packed screenplay keeps Minahan busy, but the twinned narratives and their snap-into-place dangers yet overwhelm the unease that marque the archetypal fractional of “On Swift Horses” truthful palpably jangly wrong each the play accumulation plan and Luc Montpellier’s crisp cinematography. Minahan, a TV veteran, yet falls into the trap of episodic management, to the constituent wherever characters suffer their individuality wrong the story’s increasing dependence connected constructs, gestures and making points.

The acting is simply a redeeming grace, particularly Edgar-Jones’ committedness to nuance and Poulter’s refreshingly shaded Lee, whose extent of consciousness astatine a captious infinitesimal is simply a believable surprise, beautifully handled by the actor. Only Elordi, variously treated similar beefcake and brooder, seems mislaid trying to quadrate Julius’ aboriginal vulnerability with the last act’s hopeful romance. His expansive denouement is meant to beryllium a catharsis for a deliberately corrective portion of affectional history. But it alternatively feels similar an casual flight hatch erstwhile what “On Swift Horses” promised was a richer intelligence scenery astir what roils wrong hearts accustomed to hiding.