Daisy Edgar-Jones of Normal People fame stars in On Swift Horses as Muriel, a Kansan woman in California. She’s on the phone with her brother-in-law Julius (Jacob Elordi), telling him that she won horse money. She’s wiring him money, doing it so he can buy a bus ticket to California, but he misuses said money. He instead stays in Vegas, working with Henry (Diego Calva), and together, they start a romantic relationship. He wants stability with Henry just like she wants hers with her husband, Julius’ brother Lee (Will Poulter). But temptation follows her everywhere, even in the newly built California suburbs where they buy a house. Because there, they move in next to Sandra (Sasha Calle), a local queer activist who catches her eye.

This romantic film switches back and forth between Julius and Muriel in what I may call epistolary cinema. The camera gives loving closeups to both leads as audiences can hear the two reading out letters. She yearns for him, and even when they try to be platonic, there’s some romantic tension between them. I write ‘some’ because he’s too busy loving Henry to care about family living in another state. In a way, this film captures how people love differently, even if technically Julius isn’t a ‘good’ person. On Swift Horses is right not to condemn him though – there are some who find him relatable. It also helps that Elordi’s a magnetic enough presence that we feel him even if he’s off screen.

Beautiful people don’t yearn for each other in On Swift Horses, they act on their impulses too. File this under the sub-genre of films characters exist so that they can just kiss each other. Many viewers are probably happy to see this exist in a climate where we debate sex on cinema. I’m on the pro side, but a part of me wants more out of these romantic films. Another aspect coming to mind when it comes to films like this is that it’s a period piece. The industry releases those once every four weeks and then they do, they feel less tactile now. I’m looking for films that embody the old Sears catalogue instead of these time periods feeling purely incidental.

Maybe one of On Swift Horses‘ sticking points is its choice to put Edgar-Jones as its protagonist. Another critic wrote about her having an ‘Eisenhower-era blandness’ – I love film writers who damn with faint praise. She has sixty percent of the screen time while pulling forty percent of the weight around here. And again, Elordi’s doing the opposite, but that’s due to a screenplay where other characters talk about him incessantly. Nonetheless, their relationship is still believable as people who see themselves in each other. This is also the kind of film where every character has opinions on each other that feel valid. Muriel sees Julius in ways different from how Lee sees him, and both of them are in the right.

Watch On Swift Horses in select Canadian theatres.