Have I missed something?!

Rating: 2/10 (4 February 2006)

To all the people of the world who've loved this film - 'What movie did you guys see?!'This has to be one of the dullest,blandest and most irritatingly sterile film's that I've watched in my entire movie-going life.Based on a short story by Annie Proulx,it should have remained just that - a short story.But screenwriters McMurtry and Ossana in their infinite wisdom have seen it fit to 'flesh-out' the story in order that it become 'filmable'.Although the story spans 20 years,the main leads don't seem to look any older than their younger selves and,in particular,the horrendous and amateurish wigs worn by all the protagonists appear positively laughable (don't miss the stick-on sideburns!).Heath Ledger's 'fantastic' performance amounts to spending the whole movie speaking from the south-west corner of his mouth so that audiences go back not having understood a word of what he said.The pace of the film is,to put it politely,leisurely,and I found myself looking at my watch once too often to check on the seemingly endless passage of time.To top it all,although this is supposed to be a love story,it distinctly comes across more as a lust story.I'm practically speechless as to why this movie has got so many raves.It's probably going to sweep all the major awards and I guess I'll have to enroll in some film-appreciation classes to perhaps 'understand' and fully appreciate this kind of cinema.As was the case with director Lee's earlier monumental bore 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon','Brokeback Mountain' left me cold and completely unmoved.If this seems less like a review and more like a rant,then I guess it just points to the fact as to how passionately I detest this piece of trite.The 2/10 rating is only for Rodrigo Prieto's breathtaking cinematography.