It’s impossible NOT to go see this movie. It’s not that it’s a great movie (although it’s pretty good if you’re in the right mood for romance). It’s simply the movie that everyone’s talking about. Including the Academy. At the time of this writing, it has eight nominations, a.k.a. “nods”.
The vast majority of critics have been raving about the movie for quite some time now. It tackles an easier (if not worthier) and more accessible subject than Syriana or Munich, for example. Some critics attribute the movie’s success on the fact that it’s in a niche of its own. As if “gay cowboy” is actually a niche.
You probably know the story by now but it doesn’t hurt to provide you with a synopsis, coming straight from Ang Lee’s production notes.
Early one morning in Signal, Wyoming, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet while lining up for employment with local rancher Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid). The world which Ennis and Jack have been born into is at once changing rapidly and yet scarcely evolving. Both young men seem certain of their set places in the heartland - obtaining steady work, marrying, and raising a family - and yet hunger for something beyond what they can articulate. When Aguirre dispatches them to work as sheepherders up on the majestic Brokeback Mountain, they gravitate towards camaraderie and then a deeper intimacy…
The movie essentially repackages the “forbidden love” theme, putting it in a very specific time and place (Wyoming, 1963-). The theme is heated up pretty quickly (we get skin by end of Act I) and then we’re treated to 90 minutes of leftovers.
The leftovers in this case are the romantic getaways of the two in the next 20 years. Their families are rarely more than a backdrop, as is the titular mountain. In the climatic scene, Jake utters: “I can’t make it on a coupla high-altitude fucks once or twice a year!”
Why do they expect the audience to make it? I certainly can’t. I’d preferred a bit more drama but I guess Annie Proulx’s story doesn’t have all that.
In short, if I’d like to see a good tragic love movie, I’d still turn to The English Patient. I’m re-reading Michael Ondaatje’s book on Walter Murch (The Conversations : Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film) so I find a level of depth with The English Patient that I didn’t find in Brokeback. Also, I do find it easier to see Kristin Scott Thomas as a potential love interest.
Update: Heath Ledger was found dead in his NY apartment on January 22, 2008. Rest in peace.
Feel like suing the damn limie who wrote this farce of a movie. What the hell does a Brit know about cowboys? Everything I grew up with is in a turmoil. Willies song: My Heros Have Always Been Cowboys. Sure give it a dark side. How about Momma Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys. Sure changes everything about American culture. A Brit, why couldn’t he have written about a rugby player, or a cricket player? Screw the Brits and there lack of folklore.