Finally Arrives at the HBO-Bravo State

Rating: 10/10 (28 June 2008)

OK, this is a little late in the game, and no one is likely to read it anyway, but history requires the perspective of age in order to elude snap responses that usually get it wrong.
The movie and the story on which it is based are both fine pieces of creative work. I am familiar with both. Moreover, I lived in Wyoming sheep country for several years in the early 1960's myself. I knew lots of the folks characterized in this film, from preposterous uptight rednecks to gay sheepherders to cowgirl floozies. Annie Proulx got it all right. So much for that.
Now that millions of people who don't go to the cinema and don't buy books or CD's are seeing the movie for the first time on cable, it seems appropriate to add a word or two to the thousands already written here. Even if you don't read through all the comments as an aid to understanding all the different points of view BB has opened up since it came to the screen in 2005 -- and you're seeing it now for the first time -- there is still time and need for you to offer your own fresh insights.
Mine are as follows: (1) the visuals and the score cannot be faulted; (2) the text is open to question -- read the original story and you'll see why; (3) direction and editing are generally quite good; (4) acting tends to melodrama, which in turn accents the one flaw in an otherwise compelling story -- sentimentality that obscures basic character development.
On the last point, sentiment itself is not a bad thing. It is the emotional basis of love. But one's need for love in one form or another is complex as to its origins. To set out to touch someone's heart is a task requiring more than inducing people to laugh or cry; it requires intellect as well. In other words, you don't need to like the characters or what they do in a film in order to appreciate them as fellow human beings. The film version of this story pulls too many punches in order to soften the image of the two main characters. It's just too easy to cry at the end and forget that both of these guys made some really bad choices as a result of a lack of honesty to their true natures and personal courage.
The short story provides a basis for better interpreting the film.
It also undercuts gratuitous and often subliminal gay-bashing that characterizes the usual suspects who rate this film merely on the basis of offended tastes.