Outstanding film - long overdue - a must see

Rating: 10/10 (23 January 2006)

I just returned from seeing the movie with my wife and daughter. It truly is an outstanding movie in many ways and deserving of the recent Golden Globe awards. This groundbreaking movie depicts two men who fall in love  a subject that many, if not most, Americans, particularly straight males, are very uncomfortable with. The fact that the ratio of women to men was about 20:1 in the suburban community theater where I saw it would further support the unease felt by straight men (a friend who also saw it observed the same ratio). A forbidden love story involving two very macho men rather than hairdressers or musicians makes the movie even more powerful and perhaps even more threatening to some men. It is time for people to accept that this kind of relationship and love can happen between any two men or two women, whatever their type or profession. Some may not like or understand it but the world isn't falling apart because of it - it's just human nature plain and simple. The screenwriters did a superb job in taking the short story of Annie Proulx and turning it into a movie. Heath Ledger's performance is phenomenal. Ennis as played by Ledger is so tormented, withdrawn, and just trying to figure it all out. Another powerful aspect is the dual lives Ennis and Jack lived - the dishonesty and secrecy in their heterosexual marriage relationships - something that plays out in real life all the time. Ang Lee, Heath Ledger, and Jake Gyllenhaal deserve a lot of praise for taking a career risk to do this movie.