Poulter is exceptional, revealing the layers of awareness that make Lee more complicated than he first seems. He is unquestioning about his marriage and the American suburban dream everyone was supposed to want. But he knows more about his brother than he lets on. “I ain’t asking you to change, Julius. I just want you to be safe,” he says. He knows less about his wife, delicately warning her that Julius is not who she thinks he is. “He has passions of his own. He’s just not like us,” he tells her. When Henry disappears, Julius arrives in San Diego as he searches for him, and everything comes crashing down.
Bryce Kass’s screenplay, based on the 2019 novel by Shannon Pufahl, is overwrought with story. Muriel and Julius’s gambling, the emotional love triangle, the hidden gay lives – any one of them might have had enough drama for a film. Together they are a pile-up of too many problems. In a director’s statement, Minahan says of the film, “Gambling became code for queer love; money, a symbol of freedom for our heroes”. That might work as a conceit and a message, but it’s a leaden idea on screen. On Swift Horses isn’t a disaster, but given its stars and potential, it is a disappointment.
★★★☆☆
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