Brokeback Mountain

Rating: 9/10 (14 January 2006)

Brokeback Mountain is based on a short story by Annie Proulx. The film is set in the early 60's in Wyoming where two young men meet during the summer where they are to ranch sheep on a mountain side. One is a ranch hand named Ennis and the other is named Jack who was a rodeo rider. During their time spent together the two men start to bond and fall in love with each other. After that summer they continue to go back to the mountain side to see each other, but this is hurting both their marriages to their wives and their children. Will they continue their relationship or will they have to cut it out before their families start to find out more about it? Winner of The BSFC Award for Best Director (Ang Lee) and Best Picture at The Boston Society of Film Critics Awards; The CFCA Award for Best Cinematography and Best Original Score at The Chicago Film Critics Association Awards; The DFWFCA Award for Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Picture and Best Screenplay at The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards; The LAFCA Award for Best Director and Best Picture at The Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards; The NBR Award for Best Director and Best Supporting Actor (Jake Gyllenhaal who plays Jack) at The National Board of Review; The NYFCC Award for Best Actor (Heath Ledger who plays Ennis), Best Director and Best Film at The New York Film Critics Circle Awards; The SFFCC Award for Best Actor (Heath Ledger), Best Director and Best Picture at The San Francisco Film Critics Circle; The Satellite Award for Outstanding Director, Outstanding Film Editing, Outstanding Motion Picture-Drama and Outstanding Original Song at The Satellite Awards; The SEFCA Award for Best Director, Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay at The Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards and The Golden Lion for director Ang Lee at The Venice Film Festival. Brokeback Mountain has good direction, a good adapted screenplay, good performances by the entire cast, good original music, good cinematography and good film editing. The film is a beautiful looking movie and is very well made. I enjoyed the film's story and thought that there was a lot of good character study and development in this movie. I thought the actors each did a good job of demonstrating their character's true selves as well. The movie is very touching and has a lot of tenderness and emotion. The film is believable and I think an accurate portrayal of the way things would be in this situation. Also I would like to add that I was deeply involved in this film and I cared about these characters and wanted to see what happened to them. Even with a running time of over two hours I never found the film to be boring or slow at all. I thought the film did a good job of showing these characters for who they are including their strengths and weaknesses. This is a touching, beautiful and sometimes sad and poetic movie. This is a very well done film and it should do well when it comes to the Academy Awards. One of 2005's better films as well.