A movie about sexuality in which sexuality does not dominate the movie

Rating: 10/10 (8 January 2006)

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is in my top three of 2005 movies, a year full of outstanding movies. I add my name to the hearty accolades my fellow reviewers have posted, and just to keep things short I'd like to point out the following: BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is NOT:
A "gay cowboy romance," if by that you mean hearts & flowers;
A "three hankie movie," if by that you mean predictable melodrama;
A work that fosters any "gay agenda," if by that you mean a well-meaning but inappropriately earnest discussion of social issues rather than a moving work of fiction.
Here's what BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN IS and HAS:
Based on a wonderful long (55 pp.) short story by author Annie (SHIPPING NEWS) Proulx, who grew up in the Wyoming of the story and film;
Wonderful dialog, most of it taken from the book;
Impeccable performances by all and sundry, including Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhall, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid and others;
Knockout scenery, both mountains and plains;
A sometimes depressing, but at all times realistic look at a rarely-explored aspect of American life;
A kind of "pocket epic" that spans twenty years in the life of the Gyllenhall and Ledger characters;
Well worth seeing by anyone who can handle an R-rated movie.
***BIG HUGE SPOILER***. I have to disagree with the critics who said that BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN runs from 1963 only to the mid-1970s. Proulx's book makes it very plain that the two young men were "not yet twenty" when the story begins and that Jack was 39 when he died toward the end of the story. Therefore, at least twenty years have elapsed. That's why I called it a "pocket epic" above. **SPOILER**
See you at the flicks? Movies like this don't come down the pike all that often, regardless of subject matter.
Allen Smalling