Brokeback Mountain

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
ENTERTAINMENT
RELEASED 30 December 2005
Having acquired the nickname ‘the gay cowboy movie’ (which does ‘crudely’ sum up the movie), ‘Brokeback Mountain’ is, together with ‘The Constant Gardener’, the 2005’s most romantic movie, and in the same year as ‘King Kong’, 2005 has given us a trio of genuine weepies!
In the summer of 1963, Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet up one morning in Signal, Wyoming, while lining up for employment with local rancher Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid). Aguirre dispatches them to work as sheepherders up on the majestic Brokeback Mountain, developing a deep bond with the landscape and each other. At summer’s end, the two must come down from Brokeback and part ways. Remaining in Wyoming, Ennis weds his sweetheart Alma (Michelle Williams) while Jack, in Texas, catches the eye of a rodeo queen Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway) and they also marry. Years later, the two friends meet up again, and find the deep bond they shared still remains.
‘Brokeback Mountain’ starts off as a holiday romance but becomes so much more. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are both outstanding in their roles, director Ang Lee has made a film that is good as, if not better than, his ‘97 masterpiece ‘The Ice Storm’, and there is a great score and vivid mid-west cinematography.
Based on the short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx (and adapted for the screen by the team of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana), this is a love story that is about the very nature of love, regardless of who you are or where you come from.
FIVE OUT OF FIVE