Not as good as it could have been and far too long

Rating: 6/10 (14 January 2006)

Well, I'd read the short story and had been waiting for this movie to come out for nigh on a year and a half with eager anticipation so don't expect a diatribe of gay-hate from this direction (I'm gay). Unfortunately, though, I have to say that I didn't take to Brokeback Mountain as well as some/many.
The story, such as it is (there's a reason it was written as a short story), covers the love between Ennis Del Mar (quiet, brooding closet gay cowboy) and Jack Twist (more lively closet gay cowboy), from the initial passions they share on Brokeback Mountain to the emergence of their (separate) family lives and their attempts to keep what they share going as they head towards a tragic end. And that's really *all* the story is - two guys, one more repressed than the other, in love. To me the main problem with the movie is that it takes this very simple theme and tries to flesh it out by adding vast sections dealing with each character's family situation. I'm not convinced it works - by spending so much time *not* dealing with the relationship between Jack and Ennis the film loses focus and it clouds both the flow of the tale and, ultimately, the emotional punch it packs.
The film also suffers from something I didn't expect: a focus on sex at the expense of affection. I've read this in another review, so it's apparently not just me, but I find it hard to understand why Lee chose to concentrate on the sex and violence between Jack and Ennis but shied away from showing *affection* at any point. It's hard to feel the love between the characters when every opportunity there is to reveal it is forsaken (for instance, we see the Jack and Ennis waking up in their tent wrapped around each other for all of three seconds, there are moments of horseplay which serve as a poor substitute and, *SPOILER* at the very end we finally catch a glimpse of a hug). Close to the end of the film there are a handful of scenes where the sheer power of emotion these two feel for each other is finally (and magnificently) credible, but otherwise it seems overwhelmingly to be sex and punches. I have no problem with seeing a lot of sex, but aren't these characters supposed to feel something other than anger and lust, too? The other gripe I'd have at Brokeback is that it's simply far, far, far, FAR too long and the plot can't sustain it. This is particularly conspicuous at the beginning. Lee - very uncharacteristically (compare, e.g. The Ice Storm) - goes for the wide, beautiful scenery approach for almost fifteen minutes of screen time in which very little characterisation takes place and, frankly, very little else relevant happens, either. Yes, the mountains are beautiful but there's a limit. And it's in this initial segment that the very odd choices the filmmakers have made in terms of what to give time to are most apparent: we have the overkill of vista shots eating up time (including a pretty shot of the clouds in the sky - which comes out of nowhere for no apparent reason), then *SPOILER* Jack and Ennis get to drinking in the early evening. Suddenly, the sky is black, hours have passed, and they're about to go to bed together for the first time. What?! Is it not necessary for the audience to witness what would have been the dialogue which could have made the whole relationship credible? Right from this excruciatingly slow (and wrong-footed) start the film is handicapped in time terms. The midsection meanders almost aimlessly and the ending, which *is* emotionally intense, feels very abrupt in comparison.
Finally, the new (compared to the book) family element to the ending presumably is intended to give us the idea that Ennis isn't shirking away from his fears any more. Trouble is, it was never really Ennis's family that Ennis was shirking away from. So it's hard to see how it's relevant in any way (maybe Jack's made him a good man?). It might have been better to leave it with the Ennis's discovery of the shirt (the significance of which has been muddied by the expansion of the family sub-plots).
All this is not to say that I hated Brokeback. There are some major plus points: the movie is beautifully shot; the acting is universally fabulous, including every single bit player; the final scenes are intense and heartbreaking (although if you've already read the story I suspect they lose some of their power); the score is wonderful. It's just a bit of a disappointment that it doesn't quite work the way it could have done.