The 2024 romantic drama film adapted from Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 novel, On Swift Horses, succeeds in telling a compelling story set in perhaps one of the toughest times for the queer community. Some time in the 1950s, Julius Walker returns to his elder brother, Lee, after having served in the Korean War, when he meets Lee’s wife, Muriel, for the very first time, and develops an unexpected and rather unusual bond with her. Overall, On Swift Horses makes for a poignant and enjoyable watch, backed both by its narrative style and stellar acting performances.
Spoiler Alert
What is the film about?
On Swift Horses begins with Julius Walker arriving in Kansas, fresh from having served his country in the Korean War overseas, as he now comes looking for his elder brother, Lee. Based on the letters that Lee had written to Julius, he knows that his brother is now living with his girlfriend, Muriel, at her mother’s house in Kansas. As Julius arrives at the place after hitchhiking for days, he meets Muriel for the first time, and the two spend quite some time by themselves, getting to know each other, as Lee sleeps the hours away. Apart from Lee, both seem to have a special fondness towards card games, with Muriel preferring solitaire, while Julius does not shy away from calling poker a far superior game, and there is a strong connection between the pair that keeps growing throughout the day.
Things get a bit heated between the brothers that evening, as Julius informs Lee that he has been discharged from military service, even though both of them are supposed to have served for six more months. This means that Julius will not even receive the payout and pension that veterans usually get, which is significant because he and Lee had made a specific plan for this money. They had agreed to pool this payout money and use it to buy a house in California, where they would start a new life together. But since Lee alone now has to bring this money to the table, he is livid with his brother, saying how he always goes and ruins all plans, and Muriel has to step in to calm her boyfriend.
Julius takes this opportunity to charm Muriel some more, and as they dance together, Lee returns and joins them to take a chance at something that he has been wanting to do for some time now. Lee is a war veteran as well, who is supposed to return to duty in a couple of days’ time, and he does not want to risk losing Muriel in any way. Thus, he proposes to her once more, having asked the question multiple times before, since Muriel never gave him any reply. But something is different this time, especially when Lee promises that Julius will take care of her in case something happens to him in Korea, and Muriel finally agrees.
Six months later, Lee and Muriel, now married, start a new life in California, where he works in a factory while she finds employment at a coffee shop as a barista. Currently living a modest life, Lee dreams of owning his own house, for which he has been saving up, but Muriel still feels that they will not be able to afford it. Deep down, she still looks forward to Julius’ arrival in California, for he had promised to move to the state and settle down with them before he had left Kansas six months back.
Does the kiss between Muriel and Julius really take place?
There are clear suggestions from the very beginning of On Swift Horses that the bond between Julius and Muriel being of a romantic nature, and that the two of them, along with Lee, are really part of an unusual love triangle. To begin with, Lee is dedicatedly in love with Muriel and wants to spend the rest of his life with her without any question, and this has much to do with how he is as a person. Unlike almost all the other characters we see, Lee is much more sorted internally, or pretends to be, and wants to follow the conventions of society and morality till his last breath. There is nothing to suggest that the man is faking or forcing his desire to live the American dream, with his only ambition, at the moment, being to own a house and raise a family. Therefore, it is no wonder that he remains dedicated to Muriel and has been so ever since he met and fell in love with her, and his emotions for her are extremely genuine.
Muriel does love Lee, as she herself admits later in the film, and she is seemingly happy with him as well, but it seems like there is a different sort of longing that exists in her and finds an outlet after she meets Julius. Lee perhaps lacks the sensitivity, accompanied with the shrewd resourcefulness, that Julius possesses, and this is what attracts Muriel almost immediately after she meets him. There is a clear attraction between both characters, although it is born out of a special feeling of them completing one another, although hypothetically, and not due to lust. Muriel’s love for Julius, for she admits that she has fallen in love with him, is completely emotional, and this is exactly why she feels let down by him when he does not come to California to live with them. Similarly, she also feels hurt and insulted when she learns how Julius feels about her.
The two grow closer when Julius finally comes to their new house in California a few months later, but they do not get physically intimate, as would have been expected. Although they are seen holding hands at instances, and there is also a kiss in the middle of the night, the last incident could very well be a figment of the woman’s imagination. Over time, Muriel genuinely falls in love with her brother-in-law, and so she expects to have a romantic moment with him when he finally visits. However, this is when Julius shocks her by revealing his intentions, and their situation gets far more complicated, for he has, by now, fallen deeply in love with his colleague, Henry.
Julius returns to his brother’s house only to ask for money from Muriel in order to go out on his search for Henry, since he knows that the special connection with his sister-in-law might be of use. It is most possibly the yearning to share that moment of intimacy, which she is ultimately denied till the very end, that makes Muriel dream of the kiss between her and Julius. Had the man stolen the money hidden behind the mirror, which he obviously knew of, or even if he left the house right in the middle of the night, just after the kiss, then the romantic moment could have still seemed logical. However, Julius steals only the money that Lee had been saving, and he drives away in the morning. Besides, one of the reasons why he chooses to stay away from the couple is definitely to avoid any possible entanglement with Muriel that might hurt his brother. Therefore, the kiss does seem like something that Muriel imagines, not that it affects their fates in any way.
Why is gambling so significant in Julius and Henry’s love story?
Julius meets and falls in love with Henry because of his job in a Las Vegas casino, where both of them are tasked with keeping an eye on players at the tables and notifying the authorities if they are found cheating. But the game of poker, and gambling itself, becomes a crucial part of their relationship, to the extent that it almost seems like On Swift Horses tries to draw a connection between the two. At least to both these men, taking control in a game of poker, reading their opponents, and trying to swindle them is almost like an outlet for their repressed desires and a signifier of the risks they are willing to take in life, both for love and livelihood. The 1950s were a particularly cruel time for the queer community in America, as they were not only looked down upon but strongly hated and criminally prosecuted as well.
Thus, when Henry chooses to make the first move, and he and Julius quickly fall in love and spend long hours together, he is as prone to being persecuted as when he makes the elaborate plan to rob the very casino that he works for. Nonetheless, he chooses to take this risk, dictated by his belief that men like him need to snatch anything that they want to possess. Just like with Julius’ attention and love, he is confident about the gambling plan as well, although it does not work out. Interestingly, Muriel is also into gambling, and particularly into cheating at gambling, as she places bets on the horse races based on inside information that she overhears at the coffee shop. Both these angles, along with the fact that Muriel and Julius discuss cards and gambling on their very first meeting, suggest that On Swift Horses draws an analogy between gambling and the repression of queer love and identity.
Why does Sandra part ways with Muriel?
For people like Muriel, it is already a difficult task to come to the realization that their sexuality has been a secret from themselves, and then the confusion of what to do with this realization or how to acknowledge the socially and legally prohibited love takes over. Muriel is stuck in such a situation, and it ultimately ends up hurting her, as well as the woman she has a bond with. Sandra, a neighbor in the new neighborhood that Lee and Muriel move into, is queer, and she actively holds gatherings at her house to support her like-minded friends. Muriel ends up at her house during one such gathering, and she lets Sandra make love to her after having grown an interest in her.
Following this instance, the two women almost regularly meet at Sandra’s house and make love during the time that Lee stays away at work. However, the fact of the matter remains that this relationship cannot be given any term other than an illicit affair, not just because it is against societal or legal norms, but also because Muriel herself does not know what to do about it and whether to give it serious consideration. This is why she ends up joking about their practice of making love, and this irks Sandra terribly. She addresses what had been going on in her mind for long, as she always believed that Muriel was someone who would simply explore her fantasies and then move away, returning to her conventional life after some time. Therefore, Sandra decides to part ways with Muriel, telling her that she does not want to indulge with her anymore since there is clearly no possibility of their love being acknowledged, either by law or by both of them. Simply put, Sandra realizes that Muriel is never going to divorce her husband for the sake of their love and so decides to move away from her.
What happens to Lee?
After finding out about his wife’s intimate mingling with Sandra, Lee does not confront her in a direct manner, even though he is emotionally broken by the infidelity. Soon afterwards, he sits Muriel down and tells her about an incident from his teenage days, about a girl he mentions to be named Sally. Much to the wrath of Julius, Sally had suddenly ended her relationship with Julius’ best friend to marry a wealthier man with a more stable life, whom she had been dating for some time as well. The best friend had known about this act of infidelity but was fine with it since he felt that Sally would always come home to him no matter what she did elsewhere. However, her decision to eventually dump him in favor of her other lover, which angered Julius, had taught Lee a valuable lesson—that accepting one’s partner’s infidelity will only lead to grief and heartbreak. At present, Lee admits how heartbroken he already is and suggests that he cannot accept the fact that his wife has been cheating on him, even questioning whether Muriel had ever really wanted him. The truth is that Muriel’s dreams are very different from those of Lee, and it would have only been a matter of time before she decided to leave him, as soon as the circumstances allowed her to.
One might even argue that she had been gathering money for this very purpose, so that she could have her own life some day soon, one that would not have included Lee. However, after Lee pours his heart out, Muriel decides to leave him right away, not out of spite for the man, but rather out of shame and a deep feeling of grief for having hurt him in this way. This is why she also leaves a significant amount of the money she had won for Lee, as she knows it will help him achieve his dreams.
In On Swift Horses’s ending, we do not see what happens to Lee after Muriel leaves, but considering how he is, the man will probably move to a different city to start afresh. Hopefully he will be able to move over this heartbreak and perhaps even start a new family with someone more aligned with his dreams of life.
Who does Julius choose?
During On Swift Horses’ ending, Muriel goes over to the Chester Hotel and Bar, an establishment known as a safe space for queer people, and fatefully she meets Henry at the place. Henry’s presence at the Chester Hotel confirms that despite his previous misunderstanding, he has decided to forgive Julius and be with him once again, which is why he has come to California looking for him. After a conversation and a dance together, Muriel leaves after she sticks a note of apology addressed to Julius on the soft board, which has thousands of similar messages from lovers who had been separated only because their identities and romantic choices were not acceptable to society.
Incidentally, Henry also sees this note and leaves his own message below it, apologizing to his beloved Julius and leaving the name of a bar in town he has decided to move to. When Julius eventually comes to California after his close encounter with a group of homophobes in Tijuana, he finds Lee and Muriel’s house empty, following which he comes to the Chester Hotel and Bar. Here, he sees the notes left in his name and immediately realizes that both his lovers are possibly now waiting for him. The last scene of On Swift Horses has Julius riding out of town on his horse, and his destination is intentionally kept vague to give the film an ambiguous ending.
Muriel was shown to have moved back to Kansas, where she now lives in her mother’s house, which she had not actually sold off. Earlier in the film, she had given Lee some money and claimed to have sold off her mother’s house, but she had actually won it at the races. But based on all the choices Julius makes throughout the film, it is most likely that he will go to Henry and reunite with him, deciding to live together despite not being able to go public about their love. After all, the last note also feels like a goodbye from Muriel, and the director, Daniel Minahan, has also mentioned in interviews that according to him, Julius is headed towards Las Vegas to reunite with Henry. Julius and Muriel were never really together for them to be able to reunite in the end, but the deep emotional bond between them cannot be ignored either. Perhaps it will be a very hopeful interpretation to think that Julius might go to meet Muriel at her mother’s house, the address of which he knows. But the more realistic and believable possibility is that Julius reunites with Henry.
