Fascinating "Forbidden/Unattainable Love" story

Rating: 10/10 (25 January 2006)

I read the story shortly after seeing the movie. (It's in the Oct. 13, 1997, issue of "The New Yorker" which most libraries will have; BTW, that same issue has a fascinating article on Truman Capote.) Reading the story (for me) added to my appreciation of the film. The film was remarkably faithful to the short story. I voted it an "8" shortly after seeing it but changed it to a "10" for its remarkable capturing of painful human dilemmas.
My view of BBM is shaped by my 35 years as a psychotherapist working with many people, straight and gay (closeted and out), families, etc.
Most people see BBM as a tragic love story in which Jack and Ennis could have lived happily ever after if only Ennis had been able to let himself do that.
But my experience is that almost always, to be capable of loving -- of giving and accepting being loved -- a person needs to experience lots of that as a child with one, and usually both parents (or parent surrogates).
Ennis didn't have that and if Jack got even a little of it, it sure wasn't from both parents.
So both of them grew up yearning for something either they never received or got far too little of. And when that happens, the less common result is to to seal off emotions (as Ennis usually did to blunt the pain) or, far more frequently, to be like the sad clown who keeps reaching to the floor to grab something he wants very much but whose foot always kicks it away just before it's grasped.
IMO, Ennis could function with his wife, Alma, mainly when they played out conventional 1920s-50s gender stereotypes or roles. (Men on top, women submit, mothers (not fathers) feed their children, etc.)
But love with Jack? -- Ennis could express lust and some resemblance of love only as long as the barriers remained (barriers of distance and time in between his meetings with Jack). And he could become most fully aware of his yearning for Jack only after Jack's death -- death, the ultimate, permanent barrier. So I saw it as a story about a common human tragedy that many people experience -- males and females, regardless of sexual orientation. Because when, as a child, we don't get something extremely important to us (e.g., love,affection, feeling of self-worth, etc.), while we often spend the rest of our lives pursuing it, we also find myriad ways of defeating ourselves -- e.g., by choosing the wrong partners, by ill-chosen reactions or decisions to drive away any partner who could be right, etc, etc., etc..
IF Ennis HAD been able to let himself go live with Jack, their relation (IMO) could not have lasted, in part because neither would any longer have the stereotypical gender roles to guide them, in part because of Ennis's inability to talk things out, his blocking of empathy, but most of all because of the "danger" both would feel in ever actually getting a forbidden goal. Their relationship could last as long as it did because it was a forbidden fruit that the two could only briefly taste between long periods of separation.
Acting in BBM was absolutely superb as was the casting. Films usually delineate one character very well, maybe another fairly well, and all others only briefly. While that was true here, the Ennis character was exceptionally well brought to full life; Jack's only slightly less so. And the marvelous quality of this movie is the extent to which ALL of the other characters -- Ennis's wife, Alma, and oldest daughter; Jack's wife, Lureen, and her father; Jack's parents -- all contributed to an integrated, totally believable, totally human, totally realistic picture.
And I've thought that ALWAYS a film will be less detailed than the story from which it's adapted. This is an EXCEEDINGLY RARE exception; it is far more detailed, more nuanced than the short story on which it's based while remaining absolutely true to it. Many kudos to the director, screen writers, and their human behavior consultants.
The photography was also superb -- some shots looked as if they could be framed and hung in art museums.