Story+Acting+Directing

Rating: 8/10 (18 October 2007)

Big movies like this are reviewed and reviewed to death--over 2000 people have written here alone. And yet I write one more, because this movie moved me and means a lot to me as a gay man and a human being. I don't think this movie would have worked without the transcendent power of Heath Ledger's portrayal. When Ennis Del Mar ends his life ruined by his internalized homophobia, the pain he makes us see brings us all immediately to his experience. This is what can happen to you if society and your relationship to it conspire to keep you from attaining something so important to the human condition as love.
This is a big Hollywood Epic, but masterpieces are not the exclusive terrain of quirky, off-beat films. When everything works right--superb acting from all four principles, restrained yet purposeful direction, a fantastic story--you must admire the result. This is a beautiful movie, a gay movie, a human movie, an example of high achievement in the art of film.