Good Performances In A Movie That Picks Up Speed As It Goes Along

Rating: 5/10 (16 April 2008)

Brokeback Mountain is based on a short story by Ann Proulx, who also wrote the novel "The Shipping News" - which became, of course, a very successful motion picture in its own right. Although the two stories have little in common, knowing that made it difficult for me not to make some comparisons. My reaction to the "The Shipping News" was that it came across to me as completely pointless. To be honest, my reaction to the first hour or so of "Brokeback Mountain" was essentially the same. Two cowboys go up a mountain and fall in love. OK. The rather out of the ordinary nature of their romance creates some awkwardness for them, but still this didn't seem to be accomplishing very much or really moving anywhere. To be honest, it wasn't even that courageous. Look at the popular media these days. Homosexuality is not exactly a taboo subject anymore. Twenty years ago, this movie might have been courageous. Today, it needs more than supposed controversy to make it worth watching, and it didn't have much more than that for at least half of its run time.
About halfway through, though, the pace of the movie picked up noticeably, and there were several very powerful scenes contained in that last hour: Ennis (Heath Ledger) being confronted by his ex-wife, who clearly knows that he and his buddy weren't doing much fishing on those fishing trips; Jack (Jake Gyllenhall) taking on his father in law over a family dinner; discovering Jack's fate, and the visit by Ennis to Jack's parents - these were all very well done and suddenly seemed to give me the feel that this movie had some sort of purpose - dealing with the troubles that arise when love appears in unexpected places. As a corollary to that point, I couldn't help feeling the most sympathy for the wives of Ennis and Jack. Both guys seemed to positively revel in their opportunities to betray their marriage vows.
Ledger and Gyllenhall are very good in their roles, and their characters are very different. Jack comes across as essentially a homosexual trying to manage in a straight marriage, whereas Ennis seems to be basically straight but consumed by his inexplicable feelings for this one man. Both were worth watching.
I said that I found myself comparing this to "The Shipping News." It is - in my opinion - better than "The Shipping News," but is still dragged down by an opening half that didn't seem to want to go anywhere. A strong second half and good lead performances get this a 5/10.