A strong love that ain't so strong

Rating: 7/10 (14 February 2006)

I thought this was a wonderful and moving film about forbidden love and intolerance, however at the same time, as a 53 year old gay man, I would like to point out that this is also a film about two gay men who didn't have the strength to come out of the closet and fight for their relationship. The fact is, while these two characters were "struggling" with their "secret" love for each other, there were other gay men (and women) during the 1960's and 1970's who risked everything (rejection from family and friends, discrimination in housing and the workplace, mental and physical abuse, danger to their very beings) to openly love each other and to find a way to make their relationships work, but Hollywood doesn't make movies about these brave people. Rather we have a film about two sad and tragic characters who's love was not strong enough to keep them together. Think about it, if all gay couples were like Jack and Ennis, we wouldn't even have movies like "Brokeback Mountain" today!