Brokeback Mountain - Review

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Length: 134 min

Rated: R

Distributor: Focus Features

Release Date: 2005-12-09

Starring: Jake Gyllenhall, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid, Linda Cardellini, Anna Faris, Scott Michael Campbell, Kate Mara, Cheyenne Hill

Directed by Ang Lee

Produced by Diana Osana, James Schamus

Written by Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana

Visit the movie's Official Site!

Reviewed by Joshua Tyler : 2005-11-22 21:45:49

Does being grossed out by gay men having sex make me a homophobe? Does it make me a bad person? Intellectually I have no problem with it. Homosexuality doesn’t offend me or anything. If you’re into that, fine by me. Pick out wallpaper, get married, adopt kids. I’m all for it guys. The world sucks and if you can find something that makes you happy, whatever it is, you should do it! But that doesn’t change the fact that watching two guys have sex on screen makes me feel a little grossed out. It’s like eating something that you don’t like the taste of. Maybe on an intellectual level you know it’s good for you, or you know it’s something you should like, but there’s no getting past the taste. Spinach is gross, I can force myself to eat it, even tell myself I need it, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to enjoy it. Like most straight men, I don’t particularly enjoy looking at other naked, sexually aroused males. Whether he’s gay or straight, there’s nothing fun about watching a guy drop his drawers. It’s only worse when there’s two of them. It’s not a discrimination thing, it’s just a natural, straight guy thing.

I think that’s something Ang Lee’s gay cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain is going to have a hard time dealing with if it’s going to find an audience. The movie, while not exactly hardcore gay pornography, doesn’t shy away from its subject matter (nor should it). Oliver Stone tried dodging around the gay thing in his take on Alexander, and the result was disaster. Ang Lee has taken the right tact with Brokeback Mountain, but that doesn’t mean anyone’s going to want to see it. The amazing, brutally honest, highly controversial movie The Woodsman faced similar challenges last year, and though it received a glowing critical praise was otherwise utterly ignored. Brokeback Mountain may face a similar fate.

Of course it probably sounds a bit simplistic to keeping pigeonholing the film as a “gay cowboy movie” but that’s exactly what it is. Two cowboys for hire go up into the mountains to herd and sleep with sheep and discover they’d rather sleep with each other. Ennis (Heath Ledger) is at first reluctant. He’s a quiet, uneducated man’s man who has never done any “sinning”. But Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) is beguiling and persistent. “I’m not queer” insists Ennis. Jack agrees, neither is he. Ennis may actually at first believe it, but Jack is only trying to make him feel better. Jack from the beginning, seems to know what he is, though he’s not at peace with it. Ennis on the other hand is in constant denial. As a young boy his father showed him what happens to queers; it wasn’t pretty. Later he blames Jack for everything, “this is all because of you!” he screams. But Jack didn’t make him gay, that’s who Ennis is.

The setting for Jack and Ennis’s sexual exploration is beautiful, no thanks to Ang Lee. The locations on their own are gorgeous, and Ang doesn’t do much to make them even more stunning. Maybe that sounds weird, but a great director sometimes has a way of making a good setting look even more spectacular. Kevin Costner’s Open Range is flat out eye-popping to look at, and those rolling hills Costner is shooting in front of aren’t nearly as photogenic as the craggy peaks and fast flowing rivers of Brokeback Mountain should be. The movie looks good because of where the characters are standing, not because of anything Ang or his cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto are doing. If they’d shot this thing in West Texas, it would have looked like crap.

Eventually, the summer ends, they bring the sheep down from the mountain, and go their separate ways. That’s where the real story begins. Both men go home, get married, have kids. It’s the 60’s and homosexuality is off the world’s radar. Planet Earth is in the closet. Four years pass before Ennis and Jack see each other again. When they do, it all starts over. For twenty years they keep their relationship a secret, meeting up every few months for what they tell their wives is a fishing trip, living for those few days a year when they can be themselves and be together.

Most of the movie is spent this way, with their wives enduring their husbands’ trips and with Ennis and Jack in constant longing. The film moves slowly, crawling along, taking tiny steps forward in the development of their relationship. Eventually their secret destroys their lives, their families, and finally each other. “We could have been happy!” screams Jack, and though they find brief moments of joy together, neither man ever really is.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are getting a lot of Oscar buzz for their work in Brokeback Mountain, but it’s hard to buy pasty, skinny Jake Gyllenhaal as a rough cowboy, even a gay one. Heath Leger affects a thick, halting, Southern-ish accent which is at first distracting and later arresting. Both seem uncomfortable in their own skin. That’s actually part of the brilliance of both performances. Decades of living a double life has left these characters damaged, uncertain, and uncomfortable with themselves. Ledger and Gyllenhaal do a fantastic job of capturing that hesitancy and awkwardness in their portrayal.

The big problem with Brokeback Mountain is its ending, or perhaps I should say endings. It drags on longer than it has any reason to, struggling to find a good place to stop. It finds several places, fades to black, and then moves on to the next good stop spot. When the film finally does settle on a conclusion, it’s not a satisfying one. The movie’s too long and once the boys come down out of the mountain, though it remains interesting, it never finds solid ground.

The film has its flaws, but maybe it deserves attention simply for approaching such a potentially explosive topic with determined openness. Ang Lee isn’t trying to avoid controversy, or pander to a heterosexual (possibly violently homophobic) audience by burying his characters sexuality under layers of innuendo. He’s stayed true to his material, and should be commended for it. Still, it’s a tough time in the United States to release a gay cowboy movie. The country is caught up in a crazed religious fervor and it’s never been more fashionable to hate and discriminate. In my home state of Texas, we just outlawed gay marriage… for the second time. Texans hate gay people so much they’ve made it double super-illegal for them to fall in love. It’s into this environment of sexual preference upheaval that Ang Lee’s honest, thoughtful, quiet exploration of boots and spurs homosexuality is being dropped. Fear the unpredictability of audience response.

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Char
November 6, 2008 at 03:43

I absolutely loved it!!
I can understand ( I think I undersstand). homosexual love, I am happily married, but there are so many different kinds of love.
IF this makes sense, I just loved the movie, wish there could be more of this type of thing.

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shellie
November 8, 2007 at 13:26

i adored brokeback moutian my self i think was so well put together
it was great i seen it 6 times on big screen and i now own it

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Wilton
October 29, 2006 at 10:57

I think, the movie was artistically made! I love the subtle look of the film with its perfect backdrop! I was completely in awe with the actors' acting, I love how Michelle William's manage to remain composed despite seeing her husband liplocking jake! overall, the movie is sad and inspiring! It was heartbreaking at the end that watching it sends shivers up my spine!!

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lorina
August 31, 2006 at 10:09

One of the most romantic movie ever came out of Hollywood. I don't like romance movies, and Hollywood mostly made worst romance movies, but this movie is just different. For the first time, I actually understand what it means to be in love, and this movie has so many layers, so many hidden meanings that when you watch it again, it grows on you, and then stays in you...
I hope Melissa is wrong about Hollywood not making movies like this again, I hope there will be more and more of Brokeback type of movies in the future...

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Ellie
August 21, 2006 at 16:08

I want to respond to Dorothy's comment. First of all, not all of their encounters were violent. Second of all, let me attempt to explain the reason behind the occasional violence. These two don't completely understand why they feel the way they do, and Ennis, at least, has been raised to beleive it's one of the worst sins he can commit. He resents Jack for making him care about him. The only way he knows how to express his confusion and anger is to beat up on Jack, and Jack, of course, won't just stand and take it. Thus, fighting. And yes, there was romance, they just didn't hit you over the head with it like they do with most heterosexual couples in movies. There was a lot of tenderness, and despite the fact that they didn't talk much, they understood each other. And think about it--if they didn't care about each other, if it was just about the sex or the fighting, why on earth would they keep meeting up? They're both married, and as Jack discovered, there were places even back then that they could go if they wanted to screw a guy. If that's not enough for you, well, go watch a romantic comedy.

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Dorothy
July 2, 2006 at 23:01

This movie was about VIOLENT sexual encounters by 2 men cheating on their wives...OMG! I can't believe how well rated this movie was. It was only highly rated b/c it was the first national homsexual movie. I am all for gay rights, and my best friend is a gay man, but this movie was just SICK SICK SICK. You don't go punching eac hother, and then have sex, especially in the side yard with your wife and kids upstairs. What the hell? This movie is NOT about supressed gay passion. IT is about 2 men that are sick in the head. They did not have ANY romance at all in their relationship. They didn't even TALK or know anything about each other b/c they didn't talk. It was just 2 guys... 1 hit on the other one, the other one after much pushing and shoving finally gives in, and in a violent sort of way, then he blows him off the next day. They both get married to women and have kids, and THEN CONTINUE to cheat on their wives with each other every so often on "fishing trips". This was NOT about supressed gay love. Love and homosexual relationships had nothing to do with it. It was just 2 guys who were just sick and twisted.

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jkw
June 29, 2006 at 16:55

I was not brought up in a Christian home. In fact, my father practically despised anything Christian, while my mother claimed to be an atheist. I am a Christian now, but I clearly remember being disgusted at the sight, even the mere thought of two people of the same sex kissing, or having sex, that is, before I put my faith in Christ. I'm older now, and I would say that I'm not really disgusted, I basically hold the same opinion as the reviewer. My point is, this is not solely a religious issue. In my experience, it seems non-christian 'homophobes' are more obnoxious, and even threatening to people with SSA; I would venture to say one really walking the faith Christ wanted would never say the word 'fag,' but I heard it all the time among my non-Christian friends/acquaintances. Matthew Shepard wasn't killed by Christians.

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Robert
June 21, 2006 at 23:47

"Not everyone can find two men having sex appealing, and that has nothing to do with homophobia... just sexual preference."

Whether or not you are aroused by the sex has to do with your sexual preference. But thinking it's "NASTY" and being disgusted by it is a completely different issue, one that has to do with homophobia. People shouldn't be disgusted by it; they should see it for what it is, two humans who love each other expressing their love and desires.

By the way, I thought this movie was excellent. It was intellectual, heartbreaking, subtle, and impeccably-made by all involved.

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Melissa Eggstaff
May 24, 2006 at 13:17

Wow, Laura, *very* mature. Is there any particular reason, negating and dismissing your own personal bias and upbringing, that you found this movie so distasteful?

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Laura
May 1, 2006 at 11:36

I think this movie was NASTY!

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Melissa Eggstaff
April 24, 2006 at 23:14

Well, I have to admire the reviewers honesty. Not everyone can find two men having sex appealing, and that has nothing to do with homophobia... just sexual preference. Although I must say that it was implied to me that the movie was much more homosexual pornography than it turned out to be, which is why I hesitated so long to see it. And while, yes, it did drag on... sometimes, it seems, interminably... the style was artistic and yet somehow... realistic. The ackward and sometimes painful syntax of Ennis, Heath Ledger's poignant character, pratically carried the movie and almost but did not quite make up for the sheer annoyance of Jake Gyllenhaal's stilted portrayal of a cowboy. My one fear in all of this is that, while this movie had it's bright points, it will be the last of the daring attempts at crossing this topic... that of two men in love... without pandering to stereotypes that are as dangerous as hatred in their way. I fear that Hollywood will not be crossing lines such as these again, and that this pale and rather depressing rendition is the last... after, of course, the pathetic and rather... disturbing... attempt made in Alexander. I fear that big movie executives will say, "No... too much like Brokeback" and that will be the end of that.

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