Though Brokeback Mountain is touted as a gay Western, it 'œfeels neither gay nor especially Western,' said Anthony Lane in The New Yorker. 'œIt is a study of love under siege.' The love story between Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) starts in 1963 when they are hired to tend flocks on Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain. One chilly night, a tipsy Ennis shares Jack's tent and there's a 'œbreathy, wordless unbuckling of belts.' But the movie truly comes alive when the men's chance for happiness dies. Its beauty stems from its sorrow, 'œbecause the love between Ennis and Jack is most credible not in the making but in the thwarting.' Director Ang Lee's delicacy in rendering their relationship remains true to the Annie Proulx story on which the film is based, said Ella Taylor in the LA Weekly. He doesn't 'œforce the gay issue or reduce the two men to desperate closet cases.' Rather, he reveals the unbottling of a 'œdeep, inchoate affinity between two very different personalities.' Even so, the film wouldn't be half as brilliant without stellar performances from its entire cast, said Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Gyllenhaal brings a 'œharum-scarum energy and feeling to Jack's character,' and Michelle Williams is painfully convincing as Ennis' betrayed wife, Alma. But Ledger, as Ennis, goes 'œso deeply into his character you wonder if he'll be able to come back.'
Rating: R
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