Moving and brilliant

Rating: 10/10 (9 January 2006)

I hardly know where to begin as I just got home from watching this film. The movie was beautiful, with awe-inspiring shots of the landscape framing the whole story. The strict attention to the development of the characters--especially the two protagonists, Ennis and Jack--anchored the film and gave it emotional depth. Heath Ledger was as good as they are saying, and quite frankly, although critics have been a bit rough on him, Jake Gyllenhaal was fantastic as well. I think the reason he gets a harsher treatment is because his character is less immediately sympathetic than Ledger's Ennis. Your Average Joe or Jane might be uncomfortable with Jack's patronage of Mexican prostitutes or his possible affair with a man other than Ennis; but it is his ebullience and willingness to risk all that I loved about him, in many ways he was a far braver person than Ennis. And when Ennis discovers their two shirts hung together in Jack's childhood room the deep love that Jack felt for Ennis is subtly and poignantly conveyed. The movie is as tragic for the "might have beens" as it is for the ultimate loss suffered by Ennis...perhaps the moment that hurts the most is when Ennis hears of Jack's death on the phone and you sense all the sudden pain that he cannot express. The "flashback" he sees during this moment is an enigma. Was Jack murdered the way that Ennis projects or was it an accident the way Lureen describes? Either way it underscores Ennis' lifelong fear and repression of his feelings. Similarly his rare moments of breakdown--both in the alley near the beginning of the movie and later in Jack's arms--are taut moments of truth and break your heart. This movie was absolutely beautiful, well directed, well acted and ultimately an example of the kind of artistic truth that film is capable of when all the pieces come together. It is a very human story that avoids melodrama with its aching simplicity and strong character-driven focus.