Movie Review - Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain is not a gay cowboy movie. It is a love story that happens to feature two cowboys as the lead protagonists. Director Ang Lee is at his best when dissecting improbable and impossible relationships as he did in The Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and he is at his best here with similar material. This movie revolves around the relationship between Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), a brooding loner, and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), a smooth talking dreamer, two ranchhands who work and fall in love with each other one summer at the titular mountain. They part at the end of the season and each move on with their lives, each getting married and having children. The film spans their relationship over 20 plus years and the havoc their secret relationship creates for all those around them.
Heath Ledger has produced flashes of great potential before, specifically as the emotionally neglected son in Monster's Ball, but this is the role that should take his career to new heights. Ennis is a emotionally subdued husband consumed by shame of his feelings for Jack. His wife Alma (Michelle Williams), mother of Ennis's two daughters is completely unaware of her husband's inner conflict until Jack visits four years into their marriage. The look on her face when she sees her husband kissing a man is gut-wrenching. In one instance her life as she knows it has come to an end. All she can do is accept the two or three times a year Jack and Ennis go "fishing" and she must continue to do her best for her family, all the while pining for some affection from her husband. Having only know Williams for her role in Dawson's Creek I was astounded at her range and ability to play the long suffering wife with the minimal approach she takes. It makes Alma's divorce from Ennis at once inevitable and surprising when both she and Ennis realize he simply can't continue living his lie. But due to time and circumstance Ennis can't bring himself to live his life with Jack despite Jack's pleas. Gyllenhaal also delivers a fine performance in a role that could have easily become camp. He is a man of contradictions. A bull rider, cowboy, free sprit and hopeless romantic. His relationship with wife Lureen (Anne Hathaway), originally built on excitement and then a pregnancy, turns to plain and routine as the years go on. Lureen is either completing unaware of the nature of her husband's frequent trips to Wyoming to see Ennis or just quietly tolerates it.
Another star of the movie is the cinematography. Filmed primarily in Alberta, Lee takes full advantage of the natural landscape and shapes the mountains and running streams beautifully. It makes for a nice metaphor of the relationship between the two ranchhands being quite natural. The movie is not without flaws. The relationship between Jack and his son is left unexplored, as is Ennis' relationship with one of his daughters. I also didn't understand the motivation behind Ennis' post divorce love interest Cassie (Linda Cardellini). Ennis was so emotionally frail and distant at that point I couldn't see why she loved him. But I digress. Ultimately Brokeback Mountain is a film about cultural repression, being an outsider, the devastation of secrets and lies, and yes, a beautiful love story. In the films final words "Jack, I swear", you realize how sad it is that Ennis and Jack missed their chance to be together, and you fell for them.

4.5/5