Film reviews: On Swift Horses has more than a traditional love triangle up its sleeve

Plus reviews for Honey Don't and Sanatorium

Gambling, infidelity, betrayal bubble up to the surface in On Swift Horses

On Swift Horses

★★★★☆

Work hard, obey the rules, keep moving up: These are the basic principles of the American dream, which was at its most luminous in the early 1950s.

On Swift Horses (15A) opens in Kansas on Christmas Eve, where Lee (Will Poulter) and Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) are planning to move to California and a brighter future once Lee finishes his tour with the army in Korea. But when Lee’s brother Julius (Jacob Elordi) shows up unannounced, Muriel finds his presence deeply unsettling.

Recently discharged from the army, Julius is a brooding figure: A drifter, a gambler, a self-confessed cheat. The scene is set for a classic love triangle, but Daniel Minahan’s film — adapted by Bryce Kass from Shannon Pufahl’s novel — has more than the traditional three angles up its sleeve.

As the setting switches to San Diego and Las Vegas, and Julius and the gender-fluid Muriel separately engage in illicit relationships, it soon becomes apparent that their restless explorations are not simply a matter of dissatisfaction and gratification, but a means by which they tentatively explore the awkward truth of who they really are.

The fact that they live in a cookie-cutter world where conformity is celebrated and rewarded ensures that their true selves must be closeted away: Is it any wonder, then, that their frustrations with the narrowly-defined conventions of the American dream cause a certain recklessness — gambling, infidelity, betrayal — to bubble up to the surface?

Poulter is reliably solid as the faithful, idealistic Lee; Elordi exudes a beguiling folksy charisma; and Edgar-Jones steals the show with her performance as an ostensibly mousy and meek housewife who is underpinned by a steely will.

Theatrical release

Honey Don’t!

★★★★☆

Margaret Qualley in Honey Don't

Honey Don’t! (16s) stars Margaret Qualley as Honey O’Donahue, a private detective in Bakersfield, California. Her latest case finds Honey investigating the death of a woman who left a message asking for help just before she died in a single-vehicle road accident — an investigation that leads Honey to the Four-Way Temple and its guru-like leader, the Reverend Devlin (Chris Evans).

Honey is a terrific character who serves as a parody of the traditional movie private eye: Rather than the haunted, grizzled, booze-guzzling guys who haunt the shadows, Honey is an unusually upbeat, friendly, and attractive gumshoe — albeit one who is every bit as prone to bedding the dames as her male counterparts.

Written by Tricia Cooke and directed by Ethan Coen, the story is chockful of offbeat characters, among them the manic Detective Metakawitch (Charlie Day), the sullen cop MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), and the moped-riding assassin Cher (Lera Abova), whose presence largely disguises the fact that the plot is nowhere as intricate as the private eye yarn tends to be.

That said, it’s good fun that rips along at a furious pace, and Qualley is a knock-out as the trouble-loving Honey.

Theatrical release

Sanatorium

★★★★☆

Sanatorium

Set in an aging health resort near Odessa, which is famous for its mud baths, Sanatorium (15A) is a documentary shot against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

It is a fascinating account of life during wartime, as the clients and health practitioners go about their routines while the nearby city is bombed. All the while, the staff — who utilise primitive equipment in a Soviet-era building — fret about declining visitor numbers due to the ongoing war.

The personalities featured include wounded soldiers recuperating away from the front lines, women desperately resorting to fertility treatments, and a mother who has arrived in the hope of finding her middle-aged son a wife.

Directed by the Irish filmmaker Gar O’Rourke, the film is by turns harrowing, hilarious, and bizarre, and further serves as a poignant testament to the spirit of the Ukrainian people.