This film is so beautiful that it hurts.

Rating: 10/10 (26 February 2007)

I have broken my own rule and given this film a 10 rating. (Which I reserve, as a rule, for "Citizen Kane.") Although set in another time and place it shows us how far we have to go as a people to find something other than bigotry and hatred in this great land of equality of ours.
This film hurt to watch. It hurt to see the love between Ennis and Jack. It hurt to know that they could not openly be together. It hurt to see the unfortunate end of that relationship. And most of all it hurt to realize the loneliness of Ennis in the end. This film should have swept the Oscars in its year, but the ever fickle and conservative Hollywood powers that be again acted out of their need to appear manly, godly, the usual form of Hollywood hypocrisy.
No one who has seen this film, and has any humanity in them, has been left unaffected. It says so much in just what it doesn't say. The performances of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are sublime, showing that they are both actors capable of going outside the envelope in the roles that they will take, and giving their all for the parts. The rest of the cast was all right, but the power and the emotion of the work rests squarely with these two fine actors. Just the number of positive comments on this site alone can tell you that in days to come when the great films of history are mentioned, this one will be among them.