Movie Review:Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain
director: Ang Lee    
country: USA
release: 26/01/2006
official website
rated: 2.5/5
review date: 30/01/2006 
cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Anne Hathaway, Michelle Williams

With awards and plaudits a-plenty, can Ang Lee's latest film Brokeback Mountain, possibly live up to all the hype? This "gay cowboy movie" come "universal love story" and "slow moving Western" also just happens to feature two of the "hottest" young stars of the moment: Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko) and Heath Ledger (Casanova) don on the chaps to take on some serious acting in these "kissin' cowboy" roles.

A faithful adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's 1997 short story (by Lonesome Dove screenwriter Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana), Brokeback Mountain tackles the 'radical' subject of same-sex love in a conservative setting, that is, the manly Marlboro Men terrain of the Western. Gyllenhaal is Jack Twist, a rodeo rider come ranch hand who meets Ledger's introverted Ennis Del Mar while herding sheep. Straight, white and not quite single, they fall in love and wrestle with their clandestine relationship over a forty-year stretch.

It all sounds like heavy and heady stuff right? The stuff movies that are made of and, made for. And after all, Westerns are synonymous with male love, however 'legit' or disguised as brotherly.

But the 'queer' film question is but a furfie in this case. The real issue is whether or not the film works as a love story, never mind whether it's straight, gay or bi. I may be the only film critic on the planet not in love with this film, but I felt unable to feel a thing for these guys, nor did I buy the relationship between them for a second. It just wasn't fleshed out enough ?more a sketch of a relationship than a fully formed portrait of one.

Taiwanese director Ang Lee is drawn to making movies about oppressed characters and relationships. You could even say he has made a career out of it. While his 'less is more', understated, slow-burn filmmaking style worked wonders on American suburbia story The Ice Storm (1997), it didn't for Brokeback Mountain, as ironically it comes off as an oppressed film. Call me heartless, but I think I'll stick with Andy Warhol's 1969 trashy gay cowpoke movie Lonesome Cowboys until someone else comes up with something better.