As a gay boy in rural Wyoming in the 60's...

Rating: 10/10 (24 December 2005)

I was unprepared for the intensity of the film. I think it affected me more than my partner, because of the life I experienced as a child growing up in Wyoming in the 60's. Much of my impressions of the film are formed by testing the film against that reality as I knew it.
I am sorry to report that the film is an amazingly accurate representation of the lives of many people I saw as a child. Of course being a gay boy in that time was not easy for anyone in the US. But focusing on the gay theme of the relationship in the film, misses a big point: most people in Wyoming in the 60's, men and women, Gay and straight, lived very constricted lives. The "secret" lives of many men was both common and often ended up in tragedy.
I and my best friend, who turned out to also be gay, escaped that toxic environment when we left for university studies. However, many of the people I grew up with are still there. And the sad fact is, I don't things have changed very much in the last 40 years.