a truly great achievement in directing

Rating: 10/10 (6 February 2006)

This is a directing and writing masterpiece. Every scene, every character, every piece of dialogue and every look moves the story forward and adds to the involvement of the audience with these heart wrenching characters. I can't think of any other director who could, or would, been able to take what was essentially a simple short story and add such layers of complexity and tenderness. The little things like swapping of the shirt and the jacket on the hanger, Jack's tears as he drove away and on to Mexico, Jack's mother wordlessly reaching for the bag when she saw what Ennis was holding all say so much. Wow! The acting performances are all uniformly terrific. Jake Gyllenhaal owns the first third of the movie and then Heath Ledger takes over. With a sideways glance, a slight movement of his eyes or a twitch of the mouth Ledger says more than pages of dialogue ever could. While Michelle Williams is receiving more critical acclaim it was Anne Hathaway's scene on the telephone that impressed me. Across the hard façade a whole range of emotion flickers briefly and then fades. She showed pain, empathy, sadness and disappointment, each appearing for a microsecond and then back to the front Laureen was determined to present to Ennis. I must also comment on the amazing performance of Roberta Maxwell as Jack's mother. If that doesn't rip your heart out, you don't have a heart. All of these performances point to one thing  a truly great achievement in directing.
I quickly, and probably not accurately, checked the other comments. Take out the ones written by people who seemingly hadn't seen the film but were determined to rate it down on their perception of the story. Then take out those gushing emotional outpourings of people who were determined to give it 10 no matter what. The result is a higher average rating than the rating shown at the time of writing. So what? Serious lovers of cinema as an art form rate this film very highly. I will go back and see it again.