Lovely film but not brilliant

Rating: 8/10 (29 January 2006)

Yes this is a very good movie with some really strong performances. As is generally the case with Ang Lee's work, this movie feels incredibly lived in. You never have the feeling that you are watching actors moving around sets from shot to shot. There is a real sense of authenticity about this movie.
The performances from top to bottom are very strong. There has been an incredible amount of press on Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams and though they both do fine, detailed work in this film I wasn't blown away by either of them. To suggest that Heath's performance ranks up there with the best of Marlon Brando (as the New York Times did) is ridiculous. Yes, his performance is very vividly physically etched, but the seams still show. I see the actor making decisions in many of the early scenes instead of the character. As the film goes along that became less of an issue but the flaw still remains. However, Jake Gyllenhall and Anne Hathaway have been under-praised for their work in this movie. They are showing great range and are doing work that American film actors are supposedly incapable of: i.e. giving incredibly detailed performances through vocal inflections and line readings as opposed to physicalizing everything. American film critics are trained to look for the things that generally make American actors interesting so perhaps that explains the critical imbalance on this film.
However, the film's final third swings implausibly into melodrama. I sat there thinking instead of feeling throughout that portion of the film and it marred my enjoyment of the rest of the movie. Also, the entire film might have been stronger had it been set twenty years earlier. In the last third when it is the late seventies and early eighties I kept wanting to scream at the characters to move to New York or San Francisco and enjoy the sexual revolution that is passing you by! As a queer person from the mid-west, I know that things are still difficult in those kinds of places but that is what greyhound is for. Ennis (Heath's character) might not have been able to start again but Jack certainly could have and should have. He would have found a great deal more solace on the coasts than in Mexico. Also, the first act of the film takes entirely too long to get going. No one going into the film could be unaware that the two male leads are going to get together and the film gets swept away in it's own visual poetry and establishing of their ranching habits. Ten minutes could be cut from that sequence with no adverse effects.
These flaws keep this film from being a perfect work of art but they don't diminish its importance. As a mainstream gay romance, it is likely to be an eye opener for many people, and it is courageous in its depiction of the physical nature of the two lead's attraction. It is a lovely film overall but it definitely falls below a film like The Ice Storm in the cannon of Ang Lee's work for me.