Moving and beautiful

Rating: 8/10 (28 January 2006)

By now, everyone who hasn't been on the run from the US law enforcement has heard Brokeback Mountain summarized as "the gay cowboy movie." Indeed, I think that the most interesting question about the film, and its themes, is whether it appeals to people other than gays, lesbians, and extremely open-minded people. Given the film's limited distribution, the film's distributor, Focus Features, didn't think so. Based on my thoroughly informal survey of half a dozen people, I was surprised to find that the three heterosexuals who had to be persuaded to see the movie were quite moved. I think what resonates for most people is summarized by Ennis DelMar (Heath Ledger), about the frustration of having to have a covert relationship with Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal): "If you can't fix it, you've got to stand it." These two have to live a lie in their marriages, enduring relationships that feel fundamentally wrong to them, with only brief breaks for the only relationship where they feel at ease on the most basic level. It's being trapped in a way most of us can sympathize with, but never really know. Amazingly, Ledger reveals his torment to the audience without saying much, and mumbling a lot of what he says. His body language, his lack of ambition, and his self-imposed isolation all scream that this is a guy who has never gotten the nurturing he needs and who believes he never can. Gyllenhaal conveys his agony more verbally, but less affectingly. He tells Ennis that he and his wife might as well have their marriage over the phone, he gets all huffy and stomps around when Ennis tells him he has to skip a seasonal rendezvous, but he doesn't convey the same level of inner agony with his body, in his vocal shadings, or in his other relationships with nearly the same skill and conviction that Ledger does. The cinematography turns the beautiful and rugged Wyoming backcountry (shot in the Canadian Rockies in Alberta) into another character, alternately echoing the beauty and the hardship of the two men's love. It feels perfect as the place to forge a bond between two men who work in nature, as a retreat from the outside world, and as a harsh challenge simply for the men to survive.
The women in this film, although they get far less screen time than the men, put in wonderful, nuanced performances. Michelle Williams, as Alma DelMar, hits just the right notes of shock mixed with shame when she figures out Ennis' secret. You can almost hear her rationalize to herself, "well, at least it's not another woman" as she tries to carry on with a regular family life. Her frustration with Ennis' "fishing trips" has a believably sharp edge that leaks out from her control, as she struggles to reconcile her duties as wife and mother with her unhappiness. She's developed enough as a character that when she finally leaves Ennis for a reason other than his continuing affair, she makes it eminently believable.
Twist's wife, Lureen (Anne Hathaway), on the other hand, doesn't react so kindly, turning harder and more bitter as the years go by without the love she has the right to expect. From a spunky teen rodeo princess, she transforms bit by bit, into a brittle ice princess. By the time she finally talks to Ennis, you get the clear sense that there's a seething anger barely hidden below her polite veneer.
Although the theme of frustrated and forbidden love as a backbreaking burden has wide appeal, what ultimately makes Brokeback Mountain special is that it explores its theme in an unconventional relationship with great depth and tenderness during a period of great controversy about same-sex relationships in this country. I hope that in 10 years, I can watch this film again and be just as moved.