It wears it's heart up it's sleeve.

Rating: 7/10 (15 January 2006)

As a guy I had to ask my unconscious if my hesitation in liking this movie was homophobic. My unconscious said no. But then what do I really know about those depths? How people view the meanings of this movie is through projection. You see what you want to see. This is true of all art forms of course, but the good ones drop clues along the way to point you in the right direction, but the great ones leave you struggling with paradox. My wife saw a tragic romance between two guys who could never admit their love openly. I saw two losers stuck in a dilemma without the wits to resolve it.
The plot is too well known for much to be revealed as a spoiler. Two cowboys spend a summer alone together, high in the mountains of Wyoming, and have an affair. Then they spend the rest of the movie not knowing what to do with their feelings for each other. They come together much like the sheep they herd, roughly and lustfully, and they part with no stated intention to see each other again. One (Ledger) marries and becomes a father and seems determined to live out the life appointed to him. The other (Gyllenhall) drifts around the Rodeo circuit, secretly gay, but stranded in a land where such proclivities can get you beaten up or killed.
When they hook up again 4 years later they fall upon each other with such abandon and indiscretion that Ledger's wife sees her husband engaged in unbridled passion not even a stone's throw from their home. This is where I lost the guys for the better part of the movie. Having a gay fling one summer is one thing, committing adultery without the blink of an eye, is another. Now I was left feeling more sympathy for Ledger's wife and children than I did for the lustful duo, the more so because I never saw much love between them. Plenty of lust and good old boy friendship, but little love. Committing adultery for lust put Ledger's character on shaky moral grounds, so I wanted to see it done for love. This is where projection comes in. My wife saw a love affair and what I saw was two guys putting their libidos ahead of their responsibilities. When Ledger goes on to neglect his doting daughter I cared even less about his dilemma.
It's obvious that the story is not destined for a happy ending. It is, after all a cautionary tale about forbidden love in the land of a "man's got to do what a man's got to do!" But in the end thanks to the screenwriters finally getting Gyllenhall to open up about his intrinsic gayness, we also get to see Ledger's character realize that infidelity rips out the heart.
Ledger will be nominated for an Oscar, and if Straithairn doesn't win it, then he should. His portrayal of a man strangling on his own pent up emotions is the centerpiece of the movie.