Beautifully crafted, poignant drama

Rating: 10/10 (7 August 2006)

Brokeback Mountain is a beautifully crafted, poignant drama. It has a strong, uncomplicated, unsentimental story line with rural settings and themes. According to Annie Proulx, the author of the short story upon which the movie is based, the overriding theme is destructive rural homophobia.
I put Brokeback Mountain into a very special class of movies that I call simplistic yet powerful rural dramas: The Last Picture Show, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, and The Trip to Bountiful. The specific plots have little in common, of course, but each has characters whose actions are dictated by values of a changing rural society within a given time frame. All of these movies have realistic dialog within an uncomplicated story line, are well acted and directed, and have affected me deeply. They are movies I watch again and again.
The main characters of Brokeback Mountain are young, poor Wyoming ranch hands named Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. During summer 1963 while working on the mountain, isolated and carefree from the rest of the world, they become good friends and eventually fall in love with each other. Once they come down from the mountain, they are confronted with a rural society that shuns such a relationship. They go separate ways, find wives, and have children. They meet again and struggle to keep their love alive. Their decisions, or lack of them, to circumvent the perceived wrath of society, affect not only themselves but their families, the results of which constitute the remaining dramatic action of the movie.
Seemingly ordinary conversations and often subtle interaction among characters carry the movie along. Although the action may seem slow at first, you must remain observant or you will miss the nuances, the clandestine glances, and the caring smiles that foreshadow a growing intimacy. The pace quickens after they come down from the mountain, but nothing is superfluous; each new scene and character provides more insight into Jack and Ennis and works to move the plot toward the climax. I attribute the effective transition to Ang Lee, the director.
The major actors (Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, and Anne Hathaway) are very convincing and have received much praise for their contributions to the movie's critical success. Also very impressive are the actors in the minor roles. Linda Cardellini, Kate Mara. Roberta Maxwell, and Peter McRobbie have very few lines apiece but deliver them effectively and allow us to embrace four well rounded characters.
Brokeback Mountain touches upon many other themes: true love, regret, masculinity, infidelity, repression, denial, loneliness, family relationships, and sexual orientation. Gorgeous mountains, impoverished small towns, and lonely ranches serve as backdrops. The movie has much to offer.
It is, however, NOT an easy movie to digest. You have to think about it, internalize it, and maybe see it more than once. I have already seen it many times and I like it better each time. I always see something new in the acting or the depiction of a scene.
It is not an action movie. It is a drama. It is poignant as well as a beautiful work of art. If you let yourself become involved in its story, Brokeback Mountain will deeply affect you.