Broken Hearts

Rating: 9/10 (10 April 2006)

After all the hype I didn't know what to expect when I saw this movie on DVD. First of all, it's not about "Love is a Force of Nature." A tornado is a force of nature--that doesn't make it a good thing.
The acting is outstanding as is the directing. This is an expertly made movie.
I haven't heard or read of anybody else saying or writing this, but "Brokeback" reminded me of "Anna Karenina. In that classic by Tolstoy, Anna is a very sympathetic character, but her adultery with Count Vronsky has tragic consequences including her suicide. In "Brokeback Mountain," the people really affected by Ennis and Jack's love affair are their two families. Both are destroyed. Adultery always has consequences--bad consequences whether it is two men, two woman, or a man and a woman.
Ennis Delmar and Jack Twist made the decision not to stay with each other but to marry and go on with their lives. When they made that deal, they should have kept that deal. By not doing so, they hurt their wives and children eventually destroying their marriages.
Another lie I've heard is that this is about two gay men. Wrong. This is about one gay man, Jack Twist, and another more heterosexual man, Ennis Delmar who is obsessed with one male--Jack Twist. Along the spectrum of homosexual/heterosexual love Jack was over there, and Ennis is definitely over here. Jack has other lovers, he has to get sex in Mexican border towns, and eventually is having an affair with another man when he is killed. Not so Ennis. He loves Jack, true, but he dates other women. There will be no other men in Ennis Delmar's live now that Jack is dead. Ennis is not gay.
I found this movie very powerful. I loved the women in the movie and think their roles are underrated. I especially loved the scene when Ennis promises to attend his daughter's wedding.
Ennis is a good and tender man. I believed his character and thought the whole movie was tremendously sad.